FARMINGTON — Despite requests from Linda Nef's 13-year-old victim and his family, Judge Rodney Page said Tuesday that he had no other choice but to send a former Bountiful Junior High teacher to prison.
The 2nd District judge sentenced Nef to three years to life in prison for having sex with one of her former students, and a flushed and sobbing Nef was immediately handcuffed and led from the courtroom.
In lengthy remarks before he imposed the sentence, Page said he wished the responsibility to sentence her rested with someone else.
"I haven't slept well in thinking about this case and knowing that from the date the defendant entered her plea, it would be my responsibility to impose sentence," Page said.
While he said it was commendable that Nef had come forward and confessed her wrongdoing with the boy, he said there were hundreds if not thousands of victims besides this particular boy who had been hurt by her actions.
"The greater victim in this might be our society as a whole," Page said. "This undermines our faith, beliefs and confidence in institutions that create the foundation of freedoms by which we live — and that is our schools.
"In our society, we esteem our teachers to be among the most honorable people, although sometimes we wouldn't think that by the way we try to pay them and other things. We entrust them with the most important commodity we have in our society, and that is our children," Page said.
Page said he had no doubt Nef was a good teacher and was genuinely repentant for what she has done, but the judge sensed Nef also was motivated by the "a concern this was going to come out anyway" once Nef got word about an alleged sexual relationship between another teacher and the same boy.
A tearful Nef, 46, apologized to her victim, his family and "educators everywhere who have been damaged by my actions," but especially the faculty at Bountiful Junior High, whom she characterized as honorable and hard-working people.
"I loved teaching with all my heart — and yet I committed a crime," she said.
Nef, who is married and the mother of three, began to choke up as she described how sorry she was for any harm she had done to the boy and said she wanted to offer her apologies publicly for "my completely selfish actions."
"I was an adult, I was responsible, and I knew better," she said.
Nef pleaded guilty in June to a reduced charge of attempted aggravated sexual abuse of a child, a first-degree felony, as part of a plea bargain.
She originally faced charges of rape of a child and sodomy on a child, both first-degree felonies that generally carry tough penalties.
Because the boy was 13 at the time, those charges included two potential mandatory prison terms of 25 years to life. The law allows for a reduced sentence for those types of crimes only if certain conditions existed that could be presented to a judge to justify a lesser prison term. Those charges were dismissed once the plea bargain was entered.
Sean Druyon, Nef's attorney, said mental-health and psychosexual examinations of Nef showed that she poses very little risk to the community or to re-offend, and that she is not a pedophile. He also said Nef came to him to confess, and they approached the police — and Nef has cooperated fully since then.
Druyon said all professional reports show Nef could be helped with counseling and treatment, and she assisted police in solving this case. With information she provided, police also began investigating another case against Bountiful Junior High math teacher Valynne Bowers, who is facing felony charges for allegedly engaging in sexual activity with the same boy.
Druyon said Nef admitted what she had done because it was the right things to do and was a good candidate for probation for many reasons. Among them is the fact that she has exceptional family support from her husband and extended family. When he asked Nef's family to stand, three rows of people in the courtroom rose to their feet.
Druyon also said the boy was the one who initiated contact with Nef.
Gregory Skordas, the lawyer representing the boy and his family, said they appreciated Nef's confession, and they did not seek a prison sentence. However, Skordas emphatically denied the boy was in any way responsible for what happened. There is no "balance of culpability" when an adult in a position of authority engages in sex with a 13-year-old, he said.
Bowers is charged with rape and forcible sodomy, first-degree felonies, in connection with sexual activity with the boy when he was 14.
Plea negotiations for Bowers, 40, have fallen through primarily due to a dispute between Bowers and prosecutors over whether she occupied a "position of special trust," because she was the youth's former math teacher. A preliminary hearing has been set for Aug. 28 in Bowers' case, which is pending before 2nd District Judge Michael Allphin.
e-mail: lindat@desnews.com