Law&Crime Sidebar - Middle School Teacher Accused of Raping Boy in Classroom, Giving Him Booze & Drugs

Episode Date: November 9, 2023

Police in Maryland arrested Melissa Marie Curtis, charging her with sexual abuse of a minor. The alleged victim, now an adult, accuses Curtis of assaulting him in multiple locations, including a classroom and a movie theater. The Law&Crime Network’s Jesse Weber sits down with renowned journalist and founder of TruBlu Chris Hansen to discuss this case as police encourage any other victims to come forward. HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. A man has come forward to accuse a former teacher of sexually abusing him when he was an eighth grader, only 14 years old. We're speaking with Chris Hansen about this type of predatory behavior and why we're hearing about it years after the fact. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. Well, it is another day and another teacher accused of abusing a child.

It's just unbelievable to think about this continually happening. So we have a 31-year-old woman, Melissa Marie Curtis. She turned herself into police this week after being accused of sexually abusing a minor. There was a warrant out for arrest. She was a teacher at Montgomery Village Middle School in Montgomery County, Maryland, and an adult man recently came forward in October of this year accusing Curtis of sexually abusing him starting in 2015 when she was 22 and he was 14. He was an eighth grade at the time. The man claims that the two had sex more than 20 times in 2015 over the course of several months and says that Curtis provided him with alcohol and marijuana.

A man claims he and Curtis had sexual contact in school buildings and Curtis's car at a movie theater at several homes. And as disturbing as that is, to wrap your mind around that, police are worried that there could be other victims out there because Curtis was employed by Montgomery School District for two years and also taught at another middle school. She's currently being held without bond. She's charged with one count of sex abuse of a minor, multiple counts of third degree and fourth degree sex offenses, 15 charges in total. Let me bring in right now, Chris Hansen, renowned journalist, host of Take Down on True Blue and the podcast, Predators I've Caught with Chris Hanson. Chris, thanks so much for coming on. The first thing you and I said when you came on was, why this seemed to be

happening so often? We just keep hearing these stories. My take is maybe people are feeling more comfortable coming forward about what happened to them when they're seeing all these news reports. Well, Jesse, I think you're right. I mean, we've talked about cases in Wisconsin. in Tennessee, all around the country, and at least anecdotally to me, it seems like we're seeing more survivors, victims coming forward. And I think what it says is, exactly as you mentioned, people are starting to feel more comfortable. And it also speaks to this notion about some people saying, oh, well, it's a young adolescent boy's dream come true to have a sexual a liaison with an older woman. But at that age, it causes a lot of damage. And obviously, in this

case, you had a boy who was 14 years old at the time of the offense, who all these years later has come forward because it would seem to me that he's suffering from what happened, that it impacted him in a negative way. And that's why it's a crime. And, you know, if it was something that was harmless or purely sexual in nature, for him, he would likely let it pass. But he felt compelled to come forward and report a crime that happened, you know, eight, nine years ago. And this is significant because somebody in the position of trust like a teacher should not be able to get away with this.

And it's not a harmless fantasy. It causes damage. Now, that boy has got to go back to his parents and, you know, try to have. move on with his life. And it alters a child in many different ways that are damaging and harmful. And by the way, I mean, we say this all the time. She, like the others, the defendants that we cover, are innocent. Absolutely. But having said that, do you think that police had more evidence here than just his account? I mean, this was eight years ago. Do you think that before they issued an arrest warrant before she turned herself in, they tried to gather more evidence to corroborate

her story? And what do you think that would have been? Well, I'm assuming, and it's my belief that the Montgomery County authorities in the prosecuting office there obviously had to have some corroborating evidence. You're a lawyer. You know this. And they wouldn't just act upon this if it was a he said, she said, especially going back all these years. Now, obviously, in some states for some crimes, there's a statute of limitations many times it's seven or ten years. But in the case of a minor being sexually assaulted, in most states, there is not a statute of limitation.

So they can go back. But the years that have gone by can often cloudy an investigation. And it makes it more difficult. There's no doubt. So they obviously had something else. I'm guessing that there is the potential of other victims who have come forward, or at least that they're pursuing other victims. And once, you know, we get a look at the charging documents.

Once we get a look at the affidavits, once we get a look at the warrants and all that stuff, once it gets into the court system, we'll get a little clearer picture of exactly what happened. But obviously, the authorities thought that he was credible. They must have had some sort of corroborating evidence. And my guess is they're probably looking at the potential of other victims.

Very rarely are these things one-off. There are cases where they're one-off where the female predator actually feels some sort of a connection, as illegal as it may be, with their target, with the young boy. But you have to wonder if there are other cases as well. Could have been text message exchanges that he's finally revealing. Could have been he spoke to his friends or anybody and said at the time, listen, I'm going to tell you something, don't tell anybody, but now they might be coming forward.

Exactly. Yeah, and one of the things that shocked, I mean, it shocked me, I don't know if it shocked you, when I'm hearing how long this happened over the course of several months in all of these different locations, how does a 14-year-old able, or I should say, how would the 22-year-old be able to get the 14-year-old away from the family to commit this abuse? I mean, that part surprised me. Did it surprise you? Well, it does a little bit, Jesse, but remember, we're talking about someone who's a teacher, who's in a position of trust. And in many cases, parents will hire a teacher to do extra tutoring. If the kid is struggling in math or science, it's not unusual for

parent. And I did this as a parent when my guys are younger. You know, you hire somebody to come into your home. And I never had a case where, you know, it wasn't in a very public place in the home. But, you know, parents do hire kids to hire teachers, rather, off-duty teachers to help with tutoring. And so once this relationship develops, the child becomes dependent on that teacher. And the child sees the teacher as someone who's in a position of authority. So it doesn't surprise me. It's a pattern of grooming that we see every time we do a take down predator investigation. You know, the stranger on Wednesday is no longer a stranger on Friday because these people are adept at grooming children to get what they want. And in terms of corroborating

evidence. What we've seen in a lot of these recent cases is that the victim survivor will get on a phone call that's monitored by law enforcement. And sometimes they'll call the offender and say, hey, you know, remember what happened. And they'll capture a conversation years later where the predator will implicate themselves in the crime. And I wouldn't be surprised if that didn't play in here because it has in some of the other recent cases. I'm Anjanette Levy, and I'm here to tell you about Crime Fix, a new show right here on law and crime. Crime Fix is a daily YouTube show and podcast covering the most gripping, trending true crime

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or she went on the land. Right. Does that tell you anything? Well, I think it tells me that she knew that there was an issue and that she was going to be charged and that she probably retained a legal counsel and the lawyer contacted authorities and said, look, we're not going to put up a fuss about this. We're going to turn ourselves in and we'll deal with the charges. And again, as you said,

These are just charges, and she's presumed innocent until she gets her day in court. I wanted to ask you about the ages here. So you have 14, 22, when this happened, you've dealt with all different kinds of predator cases. Different kinds of ages. Sometimes the predators are older. Sometimes the victims are younger. Sometimes the victims are older. That dynamic of 22 and 14, how do you look at that?

Well, it's a big seven years. It's not a big seven years if you're 47 and 40 or 37 at 30. but in that range 14 is a child and 22 is an adult and it's not a Romeo and Juliet situation in the eyes of the law or in reality that's a child in a very vulnerable developmental state and there's a reason why we have laws for the age of consent and 14 is 14 and it's a big gap we even have children separated in high school freshman sophomore junior and senior because there's a a big gap between a senior, a senior interfreshment. So it's a large gap. And that's why there are laws about the age of consent. Yeah. And that's such a vulnerable age, right? Such a

vulnerable age. Absolutely. And it's tough. You're coming to grips with your sexuality. You're learning about the world. Your hormones are raging. It's, it's, it's, it's a very vulnerable age. And the fact that she allegedly supplied alcohol and marijuana, what do you make of that? Well, it's a way of plying a child who's already vulnerable to make them, you know, drop their resistance, to drop their guard and to be more amenable to taking part in a sexual act. We see it all the time in the chats between predators and decoys posing as children in our investigations. You know, do you smoke weed? I'll bring weed. What alcohol do you like?

I'll bring this. I'll bring that. And oftentimes it's the sweeter, you know, easier to consume alcohol for people who are underage. But it's a consistent theme of predators, grooming, and trying to lower the defenses of vulnerable kids. We talk so much on this program about, you know, the arrest of these people and the charges and the allegations. And again, as we say, you know, she's innocent until proven guilty.

In your experience, what could be a potential defense for her saying that this never happened and, you know, prosecutors try to make your case? I mean, how can you definitively show it? Because she can't admit that she did this. There's no defense to that. Is it the only kind of defense? And have you seen it be successful where somebody has mounted a defense and shown that there's not proof beyond a reasonable doubt that this kind of abuse occurred?

There have been cases where adults have been falsely accused. And I've not seen that, however, when it comes to a female teacher and a male student. It doesn't mean it hasn't happened. I've just not seen it. But I guess the only defense that I could see here would be some sort of mental, psychiatric, psychological impairment where, you know, the teacher herself had, you know, a problem that made her act this way and she was not able to see the difference between right and wrong, some sort of, you know, mental capacity defense. But other than that, you know, they're hard cases

to defend because you have a very sympathetic victim survivor who's going to testify and say, she did this. I remember it very clearly, even though I was only 14, and this was several years ago, and this is what the impact was on my life. I've had difficulty forming relationships or whatever that impact is, and a jury will be sympathetic to that. And so what do you say as a defense counsel? Either it didn't happen, they're lying for this, that, or the other reason, or it really wasn't her fault because she couldn't control herself. That's a hard defense. So I think what you see in these cases oftentimes is some sort of a plea where, you know,

she agrees to get counseling, perhaps a registered sex offender, there's some, you know, punishment, whether it's probation or jail time, but there has to be some mandatory therapy involved here. And depending on what the experts say when she goes through, you know, the probation and parole interview process, you know, some of the, some people can be helped and not reoffend. It's always the why that's so interesting in these cases. Again, what makes it, you know, did she become a teacher to have access from children? Did she become a teacher because she wanted to be a teacher?

And this just happened for whatever reason, for whatever happened to her and her past or however she's wired. But, you know, it does cause damage. This is not a fantasy situation. And we see this. I see it on social media all the time when we do these stories for, true blue or what I appear here on your program. You know, people all say, oh, what's the damage here? He's a young man and exploring, you know, his sexuality. Well, it does cause damage. And that's it's why it's illegal. It's a minor, is a minor. I mean, there's a, it's, it's, it's the same

kind of. It's not a, it's not a gray area with a 17 year old and a 15 year old or an 18 year old and a 16 year old. This is not a great area in this particular case. And there's a strong possibility. There could be other victims. I mean, if you, She was in that school district for a while, and as I'm sure you've seen somebody who allegedly does this or is convicted of doing this, there are other victims. It's not an isolated incident, right? It could be. But in the scenario with a female predator, I have seen quite a few of these cases that are one-offs, one victim, and that's it. You can't rule it out, of course, and I'm sure they're looking at that right now.

And that may be some of the corroborative evidence that they have. Yeah. Well, Chris Hansen, a host of Takedown on True Blue, host of the podcast, Predators I've caught with Chris Hansen. If you don't know this, every time we interview Chris, he's always got a different background because he's always working on different projects across the United States. So you always have all these exciting things. And we always appreciate you taking the time to come here on Sidebar. Thanks so much. I appreciate you having me. I appreciate Jesse. Jesse, take care. Absolutely. Take care. And that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much. for joining us. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. Speak to you next time.