Law&Crime Sidebar - Naked Teen Crashes Car After Getting Caught with Teacher in Backseat: Cops

Episode Date: May 8, 2024

Erin Ward, a 45-year-old substitute teacher in Omaha, Nebraska, is facing a felony sexual abuse charge after deputies say they caught her having sex with a 17-year-old in her car. The teen tried to drive the car away from the scene but crashed and he ran away. Ward was found trying to put back on her clothes. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber analyzes this latest sexual abuse case with criminal defense attorney Sarena Townsend.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOWIf you’ve used Incognito mode in Google’s Chrome browser, find out if you have a claim in a few clicks by visiting https://incognitoclaims.com/sidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo 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. An Omaha woman allegedly admit she had sex with a high school student but swears she was never one of his teachers. We're taking a closer look at this latest sexual abuse case with criminal defense attorney and former sex crimes prosecutor, Serena Townsend. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. Hey there, everybody.

This is a law and crime legal alert. Google Incognito tracked users browsing data without their knowledge, while Mass Tort Alliance, one of our legal sponsors, is actually helping users file for compensation due to Google, misleading the privacy of their incognito browser. If you've used Google Incognito anytime since 2016, you can start your claim in less than 10 questions at incognito claims.com slash sidebar. A search warrant is giving us new details about the case of Aaron Ward. This is the 45-year-old substitute teacher who was arrested in Omaha, Nebraska, for allegedly having sex with a 17-year-old. And the way she got caught is pretty crazy.

So according to deputies, they were called out to a suspicious crime. car that was parked at the end of a dead end street on April 13th around 3 a.m. Deputies see two people in the back seat. The mail got into the driver's seat, took off without the headlights on, crashed two blocks away into a field. And this naked 17-year-old male got out of the car, took off running. Deputies say they found Ward in the back seat trying to put her clothes back on. And about an hour later deputies found the teenager when a homeowner two miles away reported the boy had shown up at their home saying he'd been in an accident he was wearing reportedly boxers a t-shirt and socks both the teen and ward they were treated at the hospital for minor injuries from the crash now ward

as i said was a substitute teacher at burke high school in omaha nebraska she faces now one count of felony sexual abuse by a school employee what does that mean what could happen what could be a defense. Let me bring on criminal defense attorney and former sex crimes prosecutor Serena Townsend. Serena, so good to see you. Thank you. Thoughts, observations, concerns. What's your take on it? Oh, so many thoughts and observations and certainly concerns. Definitely the worst way to get caught. Red-handed in the backseat of a car naked, crash the car after the fact. I mean, it could not have gotten worse. Interestingly, because the child was over. 17, she is only facing that one felony count, this teacher, Ms. Ward.

So in other words, so in other words, he's not a minor? In other words, the way that the Nebraska Penal Code works is that if you are 17 or at least over 16, you're not going to get charged with sexually abusing a child. Statutory rate. Yeah. But what they do have, which is a really great statute, is a statute that specifically targets employees of a school. So the fact that she was a teacher means that she was a teacher.

she was in this position, a position of trust that if you take advantage of that trust and you sexually assault one of your students or even have sexual contact or sexual penetration with that student, you can be facing a felony count. And that is what she's facing. It's very interesting. And let's explore that a little bit. So it says the statute, any school employee who engages in, and I would imagine this would be the one because sexual contact is a felony, but it's actually a lesser felony. The higher felony here would be sexual penetration

with a student is guilty of sexual abuse by a school employee in the first degree. That could carry up to 20 years in prison. We'll talk about what that can mean in a second. But I want to go back to this because Ward, allegedly,

reportedly, Ward and this 17-year-old both admitted to having sexual relations. Ward purportedly told deputies that she had sex with this teen multiple times, always in her car. She always says she met him at the ice skating rink, but she says she was never his substitute teacher. Is that the defense that she wasn't his teacher?

You know, when you want to get off on a technicality, I guess that's where you got to go. She already confessed to the sex. So I don't, you know, she can't say it wasn't me. She can't say it didn't happen. And so her lawyer is actually going to be strapped to find a good defense. And it may be that her lawyer has to, to go with, well, she wasn't his teacher.

Is that a, but is that a defense if you're not someone's actual teacher? Does it matter if you're a teacher in the school and you have sexual relations with somebody who's not in your class or is that a defense? The language of the statute is what's going to control here. I don't believe the statute gets so specific as to say it has to be that person's teacher. I do think that as long as you are an employee of the school and that this is a student of that same school. I think you are liable. And I don't know that a jury is necessarily going to want to even parse out those details. I think they're going to hear this was a teacher. She took advantage of her

opportunity to groom this child. And this is the result and she's guilty. Yeah. Any school employee who engages in sexual penetration with a student, not their student, but a student, I mean, I guess it's kind of, we're constructing it. We're kind of looking at the language of it. But But why do you think, there is such a thing. I mean, and courts could look at that and they could go back and forth about what is a student versus his or her student mean. The Omaha public schools, they released a statement saying, we are writing to share that law enforcement has arrested a metro area substitute teacher for inappropriate conduct with a minor. The individual worked at Burke High several days during the 2023, 2024 school year. They will not be returning to our school or any others in our district.

Does that feel like an adequate response? Because every time we cover these cases, we wonder, how could the school let this person around students? I agree. And, you know, I wonder if the vetting for a substitute teacher is a little bit more lax than it is for a permanent teacher. And it shouldn't be. I guess the thought process is if this is a permanent teacher, we have to take, you know,

really strong considerations and think about their background because this is a person who's going to be with the students for a long period of time and have an opportunity to groom them, whereas maybe a substitute teacher, you know, they'll come and go. How, how, you know, likely is it that they're going to formulate some sort of relationship with a student? Well, she was able to do it on a short period of time. And so I would hope that these schools take very seriously their responsibility to vet teachers, all teachers, even those who are just substitutes. The New York Post reporting that Ms. Ward is a married mother, that she was actually married to a Harvard-educated, high-ranking federal government employee.

I cover these stories all the time, and it really fascinates me that you're not only dealing with somebody who is having sexual relations with either a child, student, but that they have this whole life. They're married, or they're about to get married, or they have a boyfriend, because we've been covering a lot of female instructors or teachers having sexual relations with students, but they have a whole life. So it's not only that they're having an affair, but they're having an affair with someone with one of their students or a child. Your experience, why does this happen?

You know, I don't know why it happens. I think it's a sense of control. I think there's a sense of like excitement with the risk, perhaps. Although the attraction to a child to me has, I've never really understood that at all. Although I did prosecute cases like that as a prosecutor. And I actually had a case down in Brooklyn back in the day where a married, teacher she was married to an attorney in Brooklyn and he was there at her arraignment he was there while I was prosecuting her case eventually it did end in divorce but I've seen it happen I've seen

it with female teachers like we have here sometimes people can't believe that it happens it happens all the time with female teachers and male students and it's you know it's really it happens more I think than what people think it happens too often and and we also talk about it that it's so traumatizing on the child or on the teenager. They might not be able to fully process what is happening to them. So we always have to remember the impact that it has on the victims in this case. Now, Ward was held on a $25,000 bond due back in court this month. She's been ordered to stay away from the victim.

I mentioned that she has been charged. And correct me, I'm wrong, with a class 2A felony, which carries up to 20 years in prison. Do you think she fights this? Do you think she takes this to trial or does she plead guilty and what would a plea deal look like? I think she fights it. You know, really? I do because I think that, you know, I've prosecuted these cases. I defend, you know, sex offenders as well.

I mean, everybody deserves an attorney. The problem with this kind of case is that it's not just the prison sentence. It's that you have to end up being registered as a sex offender. You're branded a sex offender and probably for the rest of. of her life, she will have to register. And it's not only just an extreme embarrassment, but you lose basically any opportunity that you ever could have had to have any sort of job of responsibility.

I hear you, but I think the fact that this is in the media and this is publicized, she already has a stain on her life. And the goal is to avoid decades, you know, years behind bars. And so I don't know if she would have much success taking this trial because if she takes us to trial and she's convicted, what would she be looking at? Would she be looking at 20 years in prison? Or would she be looking at something else? I think a judge will take into consideration many things, including the fact that she has a spotless

criminal history. You know, I guess they'll say maybe it's a lapse in judgment. I don't think that even though she's facing 20 years, that she would get it. I do think that if she has a strong attorney who could argue on her behalf behind the scenes and mitigate this to the DA and just essentially say, look, this was a bad thing, but she's not a predator. She is somebody who could be rehabilitated. She'll do all of these sex offender programs. I do think that a talented attorney might be able to get her something like probation, but she will have to register. It depends. Well, it's also the age, right? Right? It's also the age. Oh, you've been able to get that. Yeah. Yeah. Listen, not everybody's me, but you could get a good attorney who could really argue

on your behalf and get you out of prison for something like this. If they are, if they know, you know, flip that confession and say look the confession is terrible but at least she confessed and the age right if he is 17 it's different than if it was a 13 year old i'm sure that's a mitigating factor a hundred percent it is he is 17 there's a reason why she's not being charged with the higher level felony of sex abuse of a child um and you know there is that technicality that the lawyer can work with and say you know if it were really that bad she'd be facing that kind of charge but instead it's just the fact that she was a teacher that she's charged with this and she wasn't even really she was a substitute teacher you know that that's interesting you say that because now i'm

thinking about a defense if she was not a full-time teacher but a substitute teacher and she only was there i'm just i don't know only there on a few occasions and she wasn't actively a teacher when she's having this relationship with him um i don't think that i don't even know if that's accurate i'm just wondering would that even be a defense not really most likely as long as she had some sort of contract and she was an employee. But you know, you never know what a jury is going to do. There is such a thing called jury nullification. And if a jury doesn't agree with the law or a jury just believes that, you know, this happened, but I don't really think she should be punished for it. You know, they could acquit. Then again, I don't think a jury is going to be that sympathetic to her.

And I do think a jury is going to have a problem with a teacher, whether it's a substitute or not having sex with a student. It's not great. Not great. Not the way they were found because now you have eyewitnesses to this, the police officers. It's not just like the account of the child or the teenager. Now you actually have the officers. Serena Townsend, thanks so much for coming on. Appreciate it. Thank you for having me.

All right, everybody. That's all we have for you here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. As always, please subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus.

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