4th February, 2020
A 70 year-old teacher has been arrested after he was accused of repeatedly having sex with one of his students, a 17 year-old, in his classroom, daily for three months.
He even insisted on having sex with her after she was injured in a car crash, causing her serious discomfort in her hips
According to the police in Florida, the septuagenarian teacher Tom Miller Privett, has been charged with sexual battery with a child under custodial authority.
He committed the offence at Terra Environmental Research Institute Magnet School, according to reports credited to local Florida papers and TV stations.
Privett, who had been a history and government teacher at the school for 30 years, reportedly groomed the girl for years before taking her virginity in the classroom, police said.
He allegedly began touching her inappropriately in his world history class in 2012, according to prosecutors.
‘These touches began as rubbing her arms while in class, then rubbing her back, and continued to kiss her on the head, cheek and partial lips,’ Detective Ismael Castill wrote in an arrest warrant.
Privett first met the student when she was in ninth grade in 2012, and he started to engage in sexual conversations with the girl when she was in 11th grade, according to detectives.
The victim told detectives the sexual conversations escalated into sexual activity in the classroom when she was in 12th grade.
The following year, Privett began to make ‘rude and disrespectful’ statements about the girl’s weight, which led to her developing an eating disorder to ‘look good’ for Privett, prosecutors said, according to The Miami Herald.
In her third year at the school, Privett allegedly began telling the victim his ‘sexual desires’ and fetishes. He then had sex with her in his classroom during her last year at the school in 2016, police said. The sexual assault began on March 8, 2016, and it continued for about three months, according to the arrest report.
Prosecutors said the 32-year veteran teacher, who also worked at South Dade Senior High School, retired from Miami-Dade County Public Schools in 2017. The victim reported the crime late last month, police said.
The girl went to police in December. To help investigators obtain evidence, she called Privett to discuss their sexual relationship as police listened.
“When a teacher transforms from an esteemed educator to an alleged sexual predator, lives are permanently damaged, trust is betrayed, and a serious crime has been committed,” State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said in a statement.
Pinellas County deputies and Miami-Dade school police detectives arrested Privett on Friday morning. He is being held without bond while awaiting extradition to Miami-Dade County.
“Our detectives worked relentlessly to ensure Privett was brought to justice,” Miami-Dade school police Chief Edwin Lopez said in a statement.