Teacher Faces Charges For Sleeping With Four Students - All Of Legal Age
http://www2.wjbf.com/news/2012/aug/16/1/teacher-faces-charges-for-sleeping-with-17049-vi-140386/Marlena Wilson | Ryan Owens, ABC News
Published: August 16, 2012
Dallas, TX --
Brittni Colleps is now on trial accused of sleeping with 5 students – four of them football players. One says his relationship began with an innocent text message from the twenty-seven year old mother of three that reads, “Hey...it's Coach Colleps. Do you know what time the baseball game starts?" But soon that studend, whose face was not shown in court video, said he was exchanging up to one hundred texts a day with her.
The student explains, “She said that she craved… that I had something that she wanted.”
“It progressed to explicit sexual messages,” the prosecutor says, “and then an agreement to meet for sex.”
The prosecution’s evidence against Colleps, who taught at this high school outside of Ft. Worth, Texas, includes cell phone video that allegedly shows group sex between the teacher and four of the students. That graphic video was played for the jury this week.
Prosecutors say it happened inside Colleps’ home, when her children and husband were away; he’s an army specialist stationed out-of-state. At least before the trial, he stood by his wife.
“If you know Brittni, you know she's an empathetic loving, loyal person,” her husband, Christopher Culleps, said. “Brittni is a loving mother and continuously puts the needs of our children above her own.”
Now here’s the legal twist… All of the students were eighteen – legal adults, so the teacher is not facing statutory rape charges. Instead she is facing five counts of a relatively new charge: having an improper relationship with a student. And one of the young men she allegedly slept with has publicly said she didn’t commit a crime, and Colleps’ attorney, Lex Johnston, agrees.
“She’s terrified,” he confesses. “She has no idea whether she is going to prison next week or whether she will be home.”
Prosecutors believe if she's convicted, she should spend the next twenty years in prison.
For GMA, Ryan Owens, ABC News, Dallas.