Rapist Teachers Worried about Child Victim

Two teachers - Linda Richins Nef, 46, and Valynne Asay Bowers, 39 - at Bountiful Jr High School in Utah face first-degree felony charges of rape and sodomy on a child. They are both accused of having sex with a student of the same school, beginning when he was 13 years old. Both teachers have hired lawyers and both are expected to undergo psychological evaluations.

It was Linda Nef who came forward - after learning of Bowers involvement with the youth - to report her behavior to the police. According to her lawyer, Sean Druyon, Nef is sorry for what she's done. Druyon is also recommending that the boy, who has emotional problems, receive counseling.

"She wants to come clean. That's paramount," he said. "But she's also concerned about the boy and his safety. We expect that he's going to need therapy. He's going to need counseling for this and other issues in his life. She wants to take responsibility and pay whatever the court finds appropriate. She's embarrassed her family, her children; she's embarrassed her school, and she feels terrible."

Nef began her relationship with the boy in Nov. 2007 and it continued through July 2008 (earlier reports said Dec. 2008). Her lawyer said Nef had wanted to come forward much sooner but was reluctant to do so because the boy had threatened to harm himself. "When she came in to see me, she wasn't sure if she could protect the child and confess," Sean Druyon said.

According Nef, the relationship with the boy started after he had left her class. "Nothing inappropriate happened" while he was her student. After leaving her class the boy continued to seek her out and she began helping him with some "emotional issues" he was going through. There were after-hours phone calls, visits between classes, meetings after hours and text messages. It grew erotic and led to sex.

"Her role went from former schoolteacher trying to help him, and one thing led to another"

Nef says she wanted to end the relationship sooner but was concerned about the boy's emotional state. It wasn't until after the relationship was finally over that Nef learned about the other teacher, Valynne Bowers. That was when she decided to contact her lawyer and go to the police.

Valynne Bowers' attorney, Rich Gallegos, said he will ask for a psycho-sexual evaluation for his client but said she was not a predator.

"I think there's some psychological issues," he said. "The kid is clearly a victim, but I think these ladies were somewhat vulnerable. When I talked to her, she had a lot of remorse and felt for the victim in the case," he said. "Realizing that she's the adult and she's taking responsibility for her actions, but all of her concerns are for the kid."

The boy is still with his parents but state child welfare workers are also involved with the case.

"We want to get all the information," said Sean Druyon. "When you look at this at first blush, here's a 40-something-year-old woman, here's a 13-year-old, almost 14-year-old boy, 'What was she thinking? She must be a pedophile.' That's not always the case."

In an e-mail sent to parents, the school said it was "a very difficult situation that we are working as a faculty, staff and student body to get through." Counselors were made available to students to help them get through the shock of the scandal.

"We are in the healing process and hope to learn and improve from those mistakes that were made," the e-mail said, expressing thanks for phone calls of support and sending out a plea for questions and concerns to administrators.

Nevertheless, the Davis School District has no plans to change its policies and ban text messaging between teachers and students. But Carol Lear at the State Office of Education has said maybe these policies should be looked at again.

"There is something more intimate about texting than there is about phone calls and certainly than e-mail," she said. "It likely is not appropriate for teachers and students to text each other, especially on a regular basis," she added.

Authorities say other cases of teacher misconduct may have started with personal phone calls, texts and e-mails.

"These younger people that I'm talking to who are student teaching or about to student teach, are saying 'I would never want a student to text me. First of all, I wouldn't want them to know my phone number. I also just think that's something you reserve; it's very casual. You reserve it for a close friend,'" Lear said.

There isn't a rule that specifically bans a teacher from texting a student, but the Utah State Office of Education has rules on teacher/student interactions.

The rules include:

• Teachers shall not make inappropriate contact in any communication-written, verbal, or electronic-with minor, student, or colleague, regardless of age or location.


• Teachers shall not solicit, encourage or consummate an inappropriate relationship, written, verbal, or physical, with a student or minor.


• Teachers shall not participate in sexual, physical, or emotional harassment or any combination toward any public school-age student or colleague, nor knowingly allow harassment toward students or colleagues.


• Teachers shall not accept or give gifts to students that would suggest or further an inappropriate relationship.

Boy Has Sex With 2 Teachers

Two teachers at Bountiful Jr High School in Utah have been arrested for having sex with the same 13-year-old boy, a student of the same school. The Davis County Attorney's Office filed first-degree felony charges of rape and sodomy on a child against Linda Richins Nef, 46, and Valynne Asay Bowers, 39.

Linda Nef, a Utah Studies teacher and Cheerleading Adviser, and Valynne Bowers, a Math teacher, each confessed to having sex with the student, said Bountiful Police Lt. Randy Pickett. Linda Nef was booked and released from the Davis County Jail while Valynne Bowers was booked into the Davis County Jail and held on $20,000 bail.

“Nothing happened at the school. Everything happened at various places in Bountiful, Woods Cross, Kaysville and Farmington,” Pickett said. “Some were parks. Others were private homes, but I don’t know whose homes.”

Linda Nef has resigned. She had been with the Davis County School District since 2004. She was first hired at Taylor Elementary School as a Physical Education Specialist. She had also been working part-time at Bountiful Junior High since March 2005, where she taught Utah Studies and was a Cheerleading Adviser. Her first court appearance is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. March 27.

Valynne Bowers is on administrative leave as a result of the charges. She has taught in the district since 1996 and was an elementary school teacher for nine years before she transferred to Bountiful Junior High in 2006 where she teaches math. She is scheduled to appear in court at 9 a.m. on March 16.

The boy, now 14-years-old, is in the care of his parents. The Division of Child and Family Services is also involved in the investigation. According to Lt. Randy Pickett, the boy and each teacher began discussing personal problems; that led to text messages, including ones involving sexual matters; then phone sex and then the alleged sexual assaults. The relationship with Linda Nef began in Oct. 2007 and lasted until Dec. 2008. The relationship with Valynne Bowers began in Dec. 2008.


It was Linda Nef who went to the police with her lawyer:

“(Thursday) we did an interview involving (Nef),” Pickett said. “She came in with her attorney and admitted to having sex with a 13-year-old boy who was one of her students. ... She disclosed that Bowers was having sex with the same student.”

The boy was interviewed next, Pickett said.

“So we finished the interview with her and because we needed to check out parts of her story, we did not arrest her then,” Pickett said. “We came back and interviewed the boy, who is now 14, by the way. He admitted to having sex with the two female teachers.”

Investigators were still not done.

“After that, then it was 9 o’clock (Thursday) night. We went to interview Bowers at her home,” Pickett said. “She admitted to having sex with this student. There was nothing we needed to follow up with her, so we arrested her and booked her into jail.”

Deputy Davis County Attorney Richard Larsen said the teachers held a position of special trust over the child, a fact that enhanced the charges. “That is the reason for the relationship of trust and why the acts couldn’t be consensual even though it was with a 14-year-old boy,” Larsen said. However, he said they are taking Nef's cooperation with authorities into account.

"I'm sure everybody involved has a desire to get this resolved as quickly as possible," Larsen said. "But we're not in a position where we can discuss plea negotiations. Our opinion is certainly we appreciate the cooperation and we're fully intending to take that into account."

Sexting Teens face Child Porn Charges

Sexting is one of those words that you will probably not find in the dictionary, not yet anyway. Born from the convergence of sex and text messaging, it has become a widespread phenomena among young teens, where nude or partially nude pictures are sent via cellphones.

Sexting is what landed six students - 3 girls aged 14 to 15-years-old and 3 boys aged 16 to 17-years-old -  at Greensburg Salem High School in Greensburg, Pa., in serious trouble with the law: They all face child porn charges. The girls are accused of taking nude or semi-nude pictures of themselves and sending them to three male classmates via their cellphones.

The female students face charges of manufacturing, disseminating or possessing child pornography while the boys face charges of possession of child pornography.

It all began when school officials seized a cell phone from a male student who was using it in violation of school rules and found a nude photo of a classmate on it. Police were called in and their investigation led them to other phones containing more photos. The school district issued a statement saying that the investigation turned up “no evidence of  inappropriate activity on school grounds … other than the violation of the electronic devices policy.”

Capt. George Seranko, of the Greenburg police said that the first photograph was “a self portrait taken of a juvenile female taking pictures of her body, nude."

The police decided to file child pornography charges to send a strong message to other minors who might consider sending such photos to friends.

"It's very dangerous," Seranko said. "Once it's on a cell phone, that cell phone can be put on the Internet where everyone in the world can get access to that juvenile picture. You don't realize what you are doing until it's already done."

However one Philadelphia defense attorney, Patrick Artur, thinks the police have gone too far. He said the prosecution of minors for photos they took themselves runs counter to the purpose of both state and federal child pornography laws: Preventing the sexual abuse of children by “dirty old men in raincoats.”

“It’s clearly overkill,” Arthur said. “… The letter of the law seems to have been violated, but this is not the type of defendant that the legislature envisioned” in passing the statute.

Under Pennsylvania law there is no mandatory minimum sentence for child pornography, so even if the teens were convicted they would not necessarily face the prospect of jail time. But nevertheless a conviction would carry very serious consequences - including forcing them to register as sexual offenders for at least 10 years.

According to a national study, by The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, most teenagers who were sending the explicit messages were sending them to boyfriends or girlfriends, while others said they were sending the pictures in a bold move to secure a date, or to someone they had got to know online.

In fact the study found that sexting starts at a young age and becomes more frequent as teens become young adults. The survey was conducted among 653 teens (ages 13-19) and 627 young adults (ages 20-26)—between September 25, 2008 and October 3, 2008. The complete report can be found here. Some of the findings were:

How many teens say they have sent/posted nude or semi-nude pictures or video of themselves?

• 20% of teens overall


• 22% of teen girls


• 18% of teen boys


• 11% of young teen girls (ages 13-16)

How many young adults are sending or posting nude or seminude images of themselves?

• 33% of young adults overall


• 36% of young adult women


• 31% of young adult men

How many teens are sending or posting sexually suggestive messages?

• 39% of all teens


• 37% of teen girls


• 40% of teen boys


• 48% of teens say they have received such messages

How many young adults are sending or posting sexually suggestive messages?

• 59% of all young adults


• 56% of young adult women


• 62% of young adult men


• 64% of young adults say they have received such messages

Authorities have been taking an increased interest in sexting resulting in many young people facing arrest and prosecution for sending and receiving the obscene messages. Jim Brown, a school officer at Glen Este High School in Ohio said:

“If I were to go through the cell phones in this building right now of 1,500 students, I would venture to say that half to two-thirds have indecent photos, either of themselves or somebody else in school."

He said that what started as a bit of fun was starting to have severe consequences, ranging from humiliation at school when the pictures are spread amongst students, to the loss of jobs or college scholarships after the photographs are posted on websites. When kids are 14 or 15, Brown said, they don't often make the right decisions.

"They think, 'I have the right to decide what's best for me.' The next thing you know, it's on YouTube, and you become an international star because you're exposing part of your body. ... Then, they want to retrieve their good reputation, and they can't."

Jim Brown also says that parents have a role to play by paying more attention to their kids' use of technology. "It's 'Kids Gone Wild,' with technology being provided by the parents," he said.