April 12th, 2010
12:52 PM ET

Former teacher pleads guilty in student sex scandal

Shackled and dressed in an orange jumpsuit, former teacher Stephanie Ragusa was teary-eyed Monday as she pleaded guilty to having sex with two underage students.

Ragusa, 31, faces up to 10 years in prison when she is sentenced on June 15.

The former middle school teacher pleaded guilty to three counts of lewd and lascivious battery in a March 2008 case involving a 14-year-old boy.

She also pleaded guilty to two counts of having unlawful sex with a minor in an April 2008 case involving a 16-year-old student.

Ragusa entered her guilty pleas as jury selection was to begin at her trial.

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Filed under: Justice
soundoff (12 Responses)
  1. Keith

    Weak story, where did it happen, what were ANY of the details? What happened to journalism?

    April 12, 2010 at 3:43 pm | Report abuse |
  2. desert voice

    I feel sorry for this teacher. She is a victim of a permissive society and the pornographic Internet. I also feel sorry for the boys, who will never forget this experience as long as they live. There is a lesson here for the society as a whole: sex is not to be treated as a source of endless pleasure. Only in lawful marriages sex has a valid place. There is nothing more spiritually harmful to a human being, than inordinate lust, hence it separates us from a relationship with God! The relationship between lust and this separation is directly oproportional: the more lust, the more separation! All this needs to be taught in schools, and rather than imprisoning this teacher, she should be made to teach this for free for the length of her prison sentence, and in lieu thereof!

    April 12, 2010 at 3:54 pm | Report abuse |
  3. Felise Visnic

    I am a 6th grade teacher, and this absolutely sickens me...I cannot even begin to understand how any adult could even think of having sex with a child...because that is what those two boys are..children. She's crying? She's upset? Too bad. Send her to prison.

    April 12, 2010 at 4:44 pm | Report abuse |
  4. ndginla

    Probably cut a deal. While men who do things like this are villified as predators, serve long terms and face a lifetime as a social outcast (and justifiably so) she, like most women, will probably face a few years probation and viewed as a victim by society. Stop this nonsense. Someone who does this is a predator, no matter what their sex.

    April 12, 2010 at 4:59 pm | Report abuse |
  5. Rock

    ya real hard to talk the guys into it, What a stupid judge.

    June 28, 2010 at 6:15 pm | Report abuse |
  6. Rock

    Not true: much differnt than men on girls.

    June 28, 2010 at 6:16 pm | Report abuse |
  7. Al

    Sorry, but truth is parents found out and more then likey forced thier sons to cooperate, and it was probably the mothers doing the forcing, just keeping it real.

    June 28, 2010 at 6:44 pm | Report abuse |
  8. L

    The people who are joking about this and saying that the boys probably benefited from the experience demonsterate why it is dangerous to give keyboards to the clueless.

    June 28, 2010 at 11:32 pm | Report abuse |
  9. Kira

    yeah... then we should probably send someone over for your keyboard

    June 29, 2010 at 4:18 am | Report abuse |
  10. daynar

    i have a child, if some one did that to mine, prison is the only place they would be safe ,my god their are a lot of stupid people out their ,trying to rationalize this activity as being ok

    June 29, 2010 at 8:28 am | Report abuse |
  11. John

    If something like this had happened to me or any of the guys I went to school with, I absolutely guarantee we would NOT have felt like victims of abuse.

    June 30, 2010 at 4:12 pm | Report abuse |
    • plancor

      amen to that brother . the only ones should be punished is the boys for yackin

      July 5, 2010 at 2:58 am | Report abuse |
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