Girl told SouthTech teacher she wanted to kill herself. He let her buy the rope to do it.
This story contains descriptions of an attempted suicide and child sexual abuse that readers may find disturbing.
WEST PALM BEACH — Investigators say the SouthTech Academy teacher accused of having sex with a student did more than groom and abuse her. According to court records, he also made a suicide pact with the 16-year-old girl and accompanied her to a hardware store where she picked out a rope to hang herself.
Palm Beach County sheriff's deputies found the teenager hanging from a tree behind a church less than an hour later. The girl's attorney, Victoria Mesa-Estrada, said deputies cut the rope and resuscitated her before taking her to the pediatric intensive care unit of St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach, where she slowly recovered.
'We're not only talking about a sexual predator, but someone who aided and abetted her suicide attempt,' Mesa-Estrada said. "She committed suicide. She's alive by miracle."
Damian Conti's arrest: Former SouthTech charter teacher faces charges of inappropriate relationship with student
Initially charged with several counts of unlawful sexual activity with a child, former AP English teacher Damian Conti, 36, now faces an additional count of attempting to assist in self-murder. Prosecutors added the charge on April 16, months after suggesting in an email to Conti's attorney that an attempted murder charge may be pending.
"This case is much more than just the sexual abuse of a minor by a teacher," Assistant State Attorney Alexa Ruggiero told Assistant Public Defender Lily Boehmer in an email made public this month. "Some of the most upsetting evidence includes the defendant taking this young girl to the store to buy materials to end her life."
There is other evidence "to corroborate his involvement with her attempted suicide," Ruggiero said.
Conti, who was seen accompanying the student as she picked out 30 feet of rope and 15 feet of chain, has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. The Greenacres man is represented by the Office of the Public Defender, which, as a policy, does not comment on open cases.
According to investigators, Conti began communicating with the student over school email, text and Instagram in August 2023.
He offered to serve as the girl's academic mentor and created after-school meetups near her locker, where he greeted her every day. Attorneys for the girl's family said he gave her driving lessons and met her at Starbucks for coffee. He sometimes visited her where she worked, his 4-year-old son in tow.
He gave her gifts and encouraged her to join the volleyball club he coached.
By the end of the first quarter, investigators say he had begun creating excuses to remove her from volleyball practice and take her into his classroom alone. The student said he confided in her about his work and home life and encouraged her to vent her own frustrations. As their trust deepened, he began sharing intimate secrets about his marriage and sex life.
The girl said Conti told her he "liked her" in October 2023. She said he then began to assault her sexually — first in a shopping plaza parking lot and then in his classroom and in storage closets on SouthTech's campus in Boynton Beach.
Under Florida law, the age of consent is 18. Those who are 16 and 17 can legally consent only to a partner younger than 24.
Lawsuit: SouthTech school officials turned blind eye to teacher's sexual abuse of student
Conti's behavior, flagrant enough to start rumors among students, earned an emailed warning from a school administrator in January 2024, according to school records.
"I want to remind you that you should not be transporting students in your car," assistant principal Erin Kurtz wrote, after a video of the girl stepping into Conti's car began to circulate on TikTok. "If you are transporting them for a field trip, the appropriate paperwork should be on file and there should always be a minimum of 3 people."
According to court records, Conti told the girl that Kurtz had questioned him about inappropriate conduct with a different teen girl the year before. The student said he bragged about how quickly he'd convinced the assistant principal that the accusations were unfounded, then continued to assault her in secret.
Both Conti and the girl told deputies that their last sexual encounter occurred on Feb. 5, 2024 — the same day as his wedding anniversary, according to the divorce paperwork his wife filed three weeks later.
On Feb. 6, 2024, a classmate who shared access to one of the girl's online accounts said he wanted to 'mess with her' by logging into her Instagram and messaging her from it. It was also a chance to see whether she was 'talking smack' about him to friends, he said.
'Lo and behold, she was talking smack about me,' he told a deputy.
The boy said he scrolled through her conversations during his first-period class and noticed one 'curious' message after another, between the student and an account appearing to belong to Conti. The boy took screenshots and shared them with school administrators.
Eileen Turenne, SouthTech's then-principal, suspended Conti upon seeing the messages and summoned the girl to the front office. At about the same time, the girl said she began receiving texts from Conti, instructing her to delete their messages. She did.
Related: Former Wellington math teacher accused of sexual relationship with student found dead
In the office, the girl said she ignored the principal's questions and asked for an attorney. She said Turenne asked her to leave campus without yet notifying her parents about Conti's suspension or the reason behind it.
According to court records, a SouthTech receptionist asked Turenne over a walkie-talkie to confirm that the student should be released from campus without her parents' signature.
"Yes. Get her out of here," attorneys said Turenne answered.
The receptionist asked again whether Turenne had written or verbal consent from the girl's parents, as was required by school policy.
"I will deal with it later," Turenne said, according to court records. "Just tell (Jane Doe) to sign on behalf of her parent."
The next time her parents saw their daughter was hours later in the emergency room. Intubated and comatose, she appeared in such grave condition that a deputy said her mother nearly fainted when she saw her.
Turenne, who retired from SouthTech three days later, did not return a request for comment.
"The school waited for the water to spill before they took any action to protect her," Mesa-Estrada said. "And when they pushed her out, they basically turned her into the hands of the predator."
After leaving SouthTech, the girl met Conti at a Home Depot near Lake Worth Beach. In-store surveillance cameras recorded Conti as he accompanied the student through the store.
She picked out 30 feet of rope and 15 feet of chain, and told an employee she was building a tree house. She told Conti it was for the both of them to commit suicide.
Conti changed his mind. The girl said he touched the rope, said he was 'scared of death' and told his student repeatedly not to kill herself. According to court records, he stood with her at the self-checkout while she bought the rope. The pair then walked out of the store together and 'went their separate ways.'
Conti told deputies later that he called his therapist and asked what he should do. The therapist told him to hang up and call 911. He did.
The call triggered a 30-minute search for the girl. Deputies found her hanging from a rope behind a nearby church with the help of her parents, who tracked her location through their phone.
Deputies arrested Conti on Feb. 6, 2024, after he admitted that his sexual relationship with the girl, and his suspension from school because of it, precipitated her suicide attempt.
'There was feelings that shouldn't have been there,' he told the arresting deputy. 'I should have stopped it.'
SouthTech fired Conti the following day.
In addition to his admission of performing sex acts on the girl, investigators uncovered thousands of messages between the teacher and student — many of which the lawyers said contained "highly inappropriate and/or explicit sexual content."
During a hearing in October, prosecutors offered the former teacher a chance to plead guilty in exchange for a 25-year prison sentence — a fraction of the penalty he'll face if he maintains his innocence and is convicted at trial. Conti rejected the offer. He rejected a 10-year offer before that one, too.
His refusal put his case on track for a jury trial scheduled to begin June 23.
If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, the Palm Beach County Victim Services and Rape Crisis Center can help. Reach their helpline at 561-833-7273, or toll-free at 866-891-7273.
The 211 community helpline and crisis hotline also provides suicide prevention, crisis intervention, information, assessment and referral to community services for people of all ages.
Hannah Phillips covers criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at hphillips@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism and subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: West Palm teacher made suicide pact with student he sexually abused
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Nate learned he had the condition, carried by up to 3 million Black Americans, after a blood test following his second daughter's birth. The former high school basketball player had never experienced any problems. A Border Patrol spokesperson declined to say whether academy leaders knew of the condition, which experts say can be managed with precautions such as staying hydrated, avoiding workouts in extreme temperatures and altitudes, and taking rest breaks. Under the benefit program's rules, Afolayan's death would need to be 'the direct and proximate result' of an injury he suffered on duty to qualify. It couldn't be the result of ordinary physical strain. The program in 2012 rejected the claim, saying the hot, dry, high climate was one factor, but not the most important. It had been more than two years since Lisa Afolayan applied and three since Nate's death. Most rejected applicants don't exercise their option to appeal to an independent hearing officer, saying they can't afford attorneys or want to get on with their lives. But Lisa Afolayan appealed with help from a Border Patrol union. A one-day hearing was held in late 2012. The hearing officer denied her claim more than a year later, saying a 'perfect storm' of factors causing the death didn't include a qualifying injury. Lisa and her daughters moved from California to Texas. They visited the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, where they saw Nate's name. Four years passed without an update on the claim. Lisa learned the union had failed to exercise its final appeal, to the program director, due to an oversight. The union didn't respond to AP emails seeking comment. Then she met Suzie Sawyer, founder and retired executive director of Concerns of Police Survivors. Sawyer had recently helped win a long battle to obtain benefits in the death of another federal agent who'd collapsed during training. 'I said, 'Lisa, this could be the fight of your life, and it could take forever,'' Sawyer recalled. ''Are you willing to do it?' She goes, 'Hell, yes.'' The two persuaded the program to hear the appeal even though the deadline had passed. They introduced a list of similar claims that had been granted and new evidence: A Tennessee medical examiner concluded the hot, dry environment and altitude were key factors causing Nate's organ-system failure. But the program was unmoved. The acting Bureau of Justice Assistance director upheld the denial in 2020. Such rulings usually aren't public, but Lisa fumed as she learned through contacts about some whose deaths qualified, including a trooper who had an allergic reaction to a bee sting, an intoxicated FBI agent who crashed his car, and another officer with sickle cell trait who died after a training run on a hot day. In 2022, Lisa thought she might have finally prevailed when a federal appeals court ordered the program to take another look at her application. A three-judge panel said the program erred by failing to consider whether the heat, humidity and altitude during the run were 'the type of unusual or out-of-the-ordinary climatic conditions that would qualify.' The judges also said it may have been illegal to rely on sickle cell trait for the denial under a federal law prohibiting employers from discrimination on the basis of genetic information. It was great timing: The girls were in high school and could use the monthly benefit of $1,530 to help pay for college. The family's Social Security and workers' compensation benefits would end soon. But the program was in no hurry. Nearly two years passed without a ruling despite inquiries from Afolayan and her lawyer. The Bureau of Justice Assistance director upheld the denial in February 2024, ruling that the climate on that day 15 years earlier wasn't 'unusually adverse.' The decision concluded the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act didn't apply since the program wasn't Nate Afolayan's employer. Arnold & Porter, a Washington law firm now representing Lisa Afolayan pro bono, has appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Her attorney John Elwood said the program has gotten bogged down in minutiae while losing sight of the bigger picture: that an officer died during mandatory training. He said government lawyers are fighting him just as hard, 'if not harder,' than on any other case he's handled. Months after filing their briefs, oral arguments haven't been set. 'This has been my life for 16 years,' Lisa Afolayan said. 'Sometimes I just chuckle and keep moving, because what else am I going to do?' Foley writes for the Associated Press.
