FARMINGTON — A former Bountiful teacher was ordered Friday to stand trial on charges that she had sex with one of her junior high students.
Second District Judge Jon Memmott ordered Valynne Bowers, 40, to stand trial on eight first-degree felonies: five counts of rape and three counts of forcible sodomy. She has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
During a preliminary hearing, a police officer read aloud a confession and letter of apology that Bowers wrote with detectives. Investigators had apparently encouraged her to write the letter, telling her that it might help her case.
"He came to me as a responsible adult," Bowers allegedly wrote in the letter. "I violated so much trust."
In the letter, Bowers said the boy approached her and spoke about several problems and issues he was struggling with.
"He was dealing with more than an adult can handle," she wrote. "I just tried to be a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on."
The boy, now 15, also testified in court Friday. Bowers sat across from him, occasionally looking up as he shyly answered with "yes" or "no" to the adult questions being asked.
Yes, he said, he looked at pornography. Yes, members of his music band — some 17 or 18 years old — talked with him about sex. Yes, his family, in particular his stepfather, talked openly about intercourse because "he just likes to joke about it," the boy said. And yes, before he and Bowers had sex for the first time, he told her that he thought she was a "pushover."
The boy also said he was the one who initiated sexual contact with his teacher. He went to her classroom after school, even though Bowers no longer was his teacher, and rummaged through her desk. Defense attorneys argued that was part of the boy's ploy to "soften" Bowers and to "pursue" her. He also sent Bowers text messages and taught her guitar lessons at her home.
"In some ways, you could argue that he was the teacher," said Bowers' defense attorney, Rich Gallegos. "When she comes home, she becomes just another adult."
Prosecutors, however, argued that as a teacher, Bowers was in a position of special trust and should never have engaged in sexual behavior with the child throughout January and February. That position of trust is why she was charged with first-degree felonies as opposed to lesser charges.
That she was no longer the boy's teacher, or that they were not on school grounds when the sex occurred, was of no consequence, said prosecutor Richard Larsen.
"A teacher doesn't stop being a teacher when the bell rings," Larsen said. "She was a teacher in his school. By nature of that position, they have authority over you."
Gallegos said the letter Bowers wrote was not a confession because the facts don't match up. "This letter was a letter of apology and feeling of remorse," he said. "It's not a statement of facts."
He said his client was emotional and crying when she wrote that letter and said a detective left the room to give her privacy.
Bowers had been a teacher in the Davis County School District since 1996, working for a decade at an elementary school before moving to Bountiful Junior High in 2006 to teach math. She taught the boy, who attorneys confirmed was not her student at the time of the alleged acts, when he was in the 8th grade.
Charges were filed after seventh-grade Utah history teacher Linda Nef, 46, went to authorities with her lawyer and admitted to an affair with a student. Under questioning, police say Nef revealed that the same boy was also having sex with Bowers, who was teaching at the same school. Detectives then questioned the boy, whom police said admitted to having sex with both women.
Police said neither teacher knew of the other teacher's involvement with the boy until just before Nef went to police.
Nef pleaded guilty to an amended charge of attempted aggravated sexual abuse of a child, a first-degree felony, and was sentenced to three years to life in prison. Despite requests from the family of Nef's victim, who was 13 at the time, Judge Rodney Page last month ordered the prison sentence for Nef.
While Page 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.
e-mail: mgonda@desnews.com