Special education teacher groomed student with nudes and sex toy video
A married special education teacher has pleaded guilty to sending nudes to a 16-year-old student on Snapchat and pressuring him to have sex.
Rikki Laughlin, 26, sent multiple nude pictures and a video of her using a sex toy to the student on the social media app. The student reportedly told authorities that 'things progressed fast' after the Snapchat messages and that he and Laughlin had kissed.
The teenager "made excuses" because "he did not feel comfortable" when the teacher tried to take things further, police heard. It comes after a teacher who "murdered hikers in front of their kids' was "cold" to his students.
Laughlin pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of a child creating substantial risk.
She was a teacher at St. James High School in Missouri at the time of the crimes between September 8 and October 19, 2023. Laughlin was sentenced to five years of probation last week.
It comes after a primary school teacher who searched for "Japanese schoolgirls" and "jailbait" was sacked after police discovered he shared indecent images and videos of children as young as six.
Steven Spong, 30, had been teaching at Monkwick Junior School in Colchester when he was arrested in July, 2022, after authorities found he uploaded child abuse images online. In October 2022, he was fired by the school following a police investigation into his conduct.
Police decided to take no further action against Spong because the images were not found on his devices. Instead, he was referred to Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA).
The misconduct hearing, which was held this year, heard how police identified 16 videos and images that had been uploaded to the internet from Spong's home IP address. They included nine videos in category A, the most serious kind. Some of the children in the images were as young as six years old.
The other uploads included two Category B videos, one Category B image, two Category C images and one Category C video. Spong also confessed to searching for "Japanese teenagers" and "Japanese schoolgirls" to find pornographic images of people that looked under 18-years-old, along with the term "jailbait."
Spong denied any wrongdoing during disciplinary proceedings and the police investigation but admitted the facts in full ahead of the misconduct hearing. He also admitted that his conduct was sexually motivated.
Decision maker Marc Cavey said: "The panel noted that, whilst the conduct took place outside the education setting, the nature of the alleged conduct relates directly to the conduct expected of those within the teaching profession and the standards which they are expected to uphold."
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