Law&Crime Sidebar - Teacher Blames Weight Loss for Having Sex with Students: Affidavit

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

Former Indiana teacher Brittany Fortinberry, who was already facing charges for allegedly sending inappropriate messages to male students on Instagram, is now accused of using drugs to coerce teenage boys into having sex with her. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber takes a closer look at two shockingly graphic affidavits filed by a detective with Indiana trial attorney Ashley Hadler.Fill out our 5 question brand survey at https://lawandcrime.com/survey for your chance to win a FREE Law&Crime t-shirt! HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea & Christina FalconeScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest 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. We got another really disturbing one for you today. A female teacher who allegedly targeted her students. This time, we have allegations of sending highly inappropriate messages to teens, including about a stripper pole to another teen accusing her of molesting him. We got our hands on these shockingly graphic affidavits in support of her arrest and serious charges, as well as her so-called excuse for her alleged actions. Welcome to Sidebar.

Presented by Law and Crime, I'm Jesse Weber. And by the way, I know that we have a lot of sponsors on this show, and look, we appreciate you supporting them, supporting us, but I'll tell you what, we'd actually really like to know, from all of you, our loyal sidebar audience, the Sybinians, if you will. It's a terrible name. I got to workshop that. Anyway, we want to know, what do you all like? So we created a five-question survey. You can tell us what kind of brands and products you use, which would just be super helpful to us to make sure we put the right companies in front of you guys. Also, if you fill out the

survey as a thank you, we're going to randomly select five of you and send you free long-crime t-shirts. So please fill out the survey at longcrime.com slash survey. It'll take less than 30 seconds, and you could win free long-crime merch. The woman at the center of this truly startling case is 31-year-old Brittany Fortenberry, a married mother who's a former teacher at two high schools in Indiana, Eminence and Martinsville. They're both south of Indianapolis, but they're in different school districts. Now, according to probable cause statements from Morgan County investigators, Fortinberry was charged in November with two counts of dissemination of matter harmful to a minor

and harassment using a computer network for allegedly sending inappropriate messages on Instagram to at least two male students at Eminence High School. But then, last week, she was charged again, this time, with three counts of sexual misconduct with a minor through intercourse, dissemination of matter harmful to minors, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. And included in the investigator's affidavit of probable cause are allegations that Fortenberry showed off a stripper pole in a basement bedroom of her home, sent videos displaying her extensive sex toy collection and told students about her exclusive content on only fans in Snapchat.

And when police questioned her about her motives, she reportedly told them that if she hadn't lost so much weight recently, this never would have happened. Okay. To go through this, to go through these allegations, I want to bring on right now, Indiana trial attorney Ashley Hadler to talk more about it. Ashley, thanks so much for coming here on Sidebar. Appreciate it. Yes, thanks, Jesse. I appreciate of you asking. How serious are these charges that she's facing right now? What we know so far is that these are just incredible, incredible claims against her allegations. And if they are true, this is a very serious situation. Yeah, I mean, two back-to-back arrests. Obviously, there's a little bit of time there, but really brazen claims, it seems we're seeing more and more

teenage boys and young men coming forward to report this kind of trauma. I mean, we've covered so many different episodes like this before. This is a disturbing trend that we're seeing. Do we ever see an underlying why these things happen? Again, these are allegations at this point. But if these allegations are true in your experience and your practice, do you get an understanding of why we're seeing this? I think from the documents I've reviewed here, according to the,

alleged perpetrator, the why is that, you know, we have someone who has disclosed that she has some degree of trauma in her own past. She also claims to have a borderline personality disorder and other underlying mental illnesses that may have contributed to this, as well as some self-esteem issues. We see in the probable cause affidavit that she claims to have lost over 100 pounds, regaining some of her sexuality, maybe. By the way, imagine this for a second. You help your little brother land a great job abroad. But when he arrives, that job doesn't exist.

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Let's get into this a little bit more. So I want to talk about these two probable cause statements. Both were filed by Detective Sergeant Patrick Williams of the Morgan County Sheriff's Department. And according to Detective Williams' statement to support the charges that were filed back in November, two students told staff at Eminence High School that Fortenbury, a new teacher, had made sexual comments toward them and had been communicating with them on Instagram in the fall of 2024. Now she reportedly resigned within a few short weeks of being high. But here's the thing. The victims are not identified in the complaints. All the names are

redacted. But here is what it says. Quote, Victim One says around the fourth day of school, they were called down, told there was a new teacher at school, had some things in her car, needed help moving in, and they were going to TA, meaning a teaching, teaching assistant for her. Now, victim one said that the teacher introduced herself as Brittany and that they could call her Miss B. Now, this boy apparently told police things seem pretty normal for the first week of school. He helped Fortenberry set up her classroom, grade papers, you know, things like that. But it was when Fortenberry allegedly added him on Instagram, purportedly to ask him about the schedule for the school's cross-country meets. That's when things got a little odd. The victim

told the detective he thought it was kind of weird, but sent her a link. And from there, he says, Fortenberry started texting him, quote, how a friend would, not necessarily how a teacher would. And the victim told the detective that his buddy also helped out as a teacher's assistant. in Fortenberry's classroom during the free periods. And he alleges that once Fortenberry learned that he was an adult, she flirted almost exclusively with him. According to the probable cause statement, Victim One said that she sent him a video on Instagram.

He said she asked if he wanted to see her collection. He said in the video she sent him, it was going drawer after drawer of sex toys. Victim One said she would go one by one showing off what they were. He said he didn't really understand what was going. on. And victim one said that he deleted his chat, sat his phone down and said, we're done with that. Now, Ashley, taking these allegations is true. Is this a common ruse? You start by asking about something benign. You build it up, you know, I always, it seems to me in a lot of the

cases that we've covered, once the teacher starts communicating with a student over text or over social media, that's how it, you know, begins the allegations. Absolutely. I think you hit the nail on the head. This is a very common situation. I would say the strange thing, if anything, about these incidents is how quickly she transitioned from appropriate to inappropriate conversation within days of first meeting these boys. Yeah, because the court filing states that after Fortenberry sent him a seductive photo of her cleavage, He told her that he didn't understand why she had this attraction to him, that he realizes that he's 18 and told her that this could ruin her job, that he had a wonderful girlfriend, that he had no problem being her TA, and that she just needed to leave him alone.

But the victim reportedly told Fortinbury that he wouldn't report her as long as she stopped trying to communicate with him. He claims she later sent him a link to a scholarship and an attempt to reconnect with him. Quote, victim once said he learned the next day within a half hour of him telling her to stop talking to him that she started talking to his buddy. Now, Ashley, all of this allegedly happened in the span of one week in August of 2024, according to the probable cause statement. Talk to me about that progression, but also I have to say, in a lot of the cases I've covered, how much of a digital trail do these defendants leave? Unfortunately, not as much as you would hope and not as much as you would expect, and it's something, you know, she was very savvy in this way. She had operated communicating on a lot of different text platforms with adults and other children we've learned. And we see that she also would turn on vanishing mode so that her messages would be deleted immediately.

And then after things came to light and after she was being investigated, she deleted her account entirely, which made it difficult to obtain much of the information that had existed at one time. Talk to me about that real quick. I always assumed that even if someone deletes their account or deletes their messages, that's able to be obtained through a subpoena to the social media companies. I don't know if that's the same thing with a Snapchat where the messages disappear, but am I wrong about that? On Instagram now, if something is in vanish mode, it is able to be retrieved for a period of time, but there are certain timeframes after which it's not and certain actions that the user can take in their account so that it's not available even via subpoena by law enforcement, unfortunately. Interesting.

Well, during the interview, the detective asked the student to go into further detail about the messages and the videos that Fortenberry allegedly sent him on Instagram. And he says that she sent him a photo of a bedroom with a stripper pole and said she used to be an exotic dancer. And she also allegedly told him about her exclusive sexual content that she posted to OnlyFans and Snapchat. Quote, Victim One said at one point she had told him over the last two years she had lost 100 pounds. He said that she showed him a before and after picture and he praised her for her telling her that was hard to do. victim one said that he never complimented her in a way that could have been a sexual comment, though. Now, the student told the detective that none of the images Fortenberry allegedly sent him on Instagram

were fully nude, but admitted she had left her phone on a desk in the empty classroom, open to the photos app, which was full of naked photos. Real quick, Ashley, is there any way at this point, before we go any further, you could say this is not dissemination, this is not harassment based on the statutes? Um, you know, personally, I, my opinion would be no. I think this is someone who's very clearly boundary pushing, um, attempting to groom someone, attempting to expose someone to adult content. So, um, you know, whether or not it would meet the, the burden necessary for a prosecutor to move forward. I'm not sure, but I think absolutely, um, it, the possibility is there that it, that it, it should be pursued at that point. So going back to this, going back to Detective Williams, he also did an interview with the second alleged victim who said that Fortenberry had sent him similar photos and videos

on Instagram. And he claimed she sent videos of herself smoking weed in her garage and often talked about her hyper-sexualized past. So deputies, they served a warrant on Fortinberry's home in nearby Martinsville and found the stripper pole. They found apparently the drawers full of sex toys. So, in other words, it corroborated the student's stories. But what did Fortenberry have to say about all this?

Well, she came in to do an interview and apparently told the detective that the Eminence high school administration had told her she was having inappropriate conversations with students. According to Fortenberry, her social media accounts had been sent out and spread around the school, and she claims it was the students who approached her online, not the other way around. She said the school gave her an opportunity to resign to prevent the scandal from going public at a school board meeting. So Fortenberry says she signed a resignation letter.

Ashley, based on this alone, any defense here? I mean, what do you make of that? My take on her version of the events was that she was providing the minimum details that she needed to and waiting for the detective to volunteer additional information about how much they actually knew at that point. Hmm. It's interesting. Now, I will say throughout her interview with Detective Williams, it appears that Fortenberry seemed to go off on several strange tangents about her body, that she was very proud of the weight that she lost. Well, according to Detective Williams' statements in the probable cause document, it reads, I then asked Brittany what's going through

her mind when there's allegations of sexual stuff or sexual messages between students. Britney says that she's going to be honest with me, that she regrets the day that she lost weight. Brittany continues saying that she doesn't think she would run into any of these issues if she was still 150 pounds heavier. And she also apparently told a bizarre story about a mom asking her to leave a local pool because her body was distracting. The affidavit reads, Brittany then says she has large breasts. Brittany continues saying the joke was that she was a blow-up doll.

And no matter how she dressed, people talked. about the way she looked. Brittany said she didn't want to do younger teaching because she doesn't have that kid voice. Brittany said she thought high school would be better. Brittany said she realized that all are going through puberty and she said that she showed kindness to those kids and people have problems with it. So it seems, again, Ashley, that I don't know if this is necessarily a legal defense more of trying to rational, if these allegations are true, trying to rationalize. what happened here. Absolutely.

And that's something that you see with a lot of perpetrators who work in school systems and with kids. This is a person who has reframed the narrative entirely so that she is the victim, you know, because of the way she looks that she has been singled out and her actions have been misconstrued. But really, you know, she is a person who, if true, these things that she's doing are highly, highly inappropriate so any criticism would be very valid just to be clear from a legal point of view there is no way minors could have started this even if they were if you take her as true you know they reached out to her they were going there's no way that would work for her as a defense right it would not because even if a minor reached out to

her added her on Snapchat started a conversation the moment she engages in appropriately, the crime as charged had been committed. So when the detective asked about Fortenberry's communications with the students online, she apparently said she did talk to them on Instagram, which she acknowledged was wrong, but she said she only talked about scholarship information. And she claimed that the boys would try to video call her, but that she shut that down. Fortinberry told the detective that, yes, she does have a stripper poll. It was featured in her in her Instagram stories, which could be seen by anyone on the app.

but she insisted she never sent videos of her sex toy collection, saying that type of video would only be one of the platforms where she shared exclusive content. And when the detective pointed out that what they found in her home matched exactly with what the alleged victim said they saw in the videos, he wrote that Fort Berry really couldn't explain that. So I couldn't tell Ashley whether or not she was suggesting that these were just videos that were being accessed by students

and that it wasn't her directly sending them. But if that's true, she really didn't have a great explanation for that. I guess that's problematic for her. Yeah, in my opinion, that was a moment when her story and the facade that she had worked to create fell apart a little bit until then, you know, she had she had purposely set messages to vanishing mode, turned it off when she sent the scholarship information, turned it back on after that. So she was working while she she was having these inappropriate conversations to leave a trail that she wanted to leave if she were caught. And the video with the sex toys

seemed to be a piece of the puzzle that she had not anticipated or thought through. So she didn't have a good answer in that interview. So on November 6th, as we were talking about, four charges were filed against Fortinbury. Two counts of dissemination of matter harmful to minors and harassed. using a computer network. Eminence community schools confirmed that Fortenberry was a math teacher for middle school students. All the students, kindergarten through 12th grade, they were all on the same campus, and the school district released a statement saying the night of August 22nd, 2024, a report was made to the school corporation that an employee, Brittany Fortenberry, had engaged in inappropriate conduct toward two students. School administration immediately reported this information to the Indiana Department of Child Services and local law enforcement. The employee was immediately suspended the night of August 22, 2024, pending investigation into the reported misconduct on or before 9.45 a.m. the following morning on August 23, 2024, a resignation notice was received from Ms. Fortenberry and her employment with the Eminence Community Schools immediately ended. The welfare and safety of our students is the top priority of the eminence community schools. As such, the school corporation has been and will continue to fully cooperate with law enforcement and the Morgan County Prosecutor's Office. in this matter. So Ashley, two questions for you. Number one, there is a little bit of time

between August and the November charges. Why do you see that, you know, that I don't want to say delay. I mean, I guess there was needed to be an investigation before you could bring charges. You tell me that. And number two, school district face any liability here? As to the first, absolutely, you're right. It takes time to investigate. There were a lot of things that the detective was following up on after the first interview. And like you mentioned, certain records have to be subpoenaed and obtaining that data from third parties like Snapchat or meta does take time.

And presumably the detective was gathering that, sending that to the prosecutor's office, and then the prosecutor's office would need time to review and determine whether they would move forward. The, as to the liability of the school district, that is a very interesting, interesting question. I think that had this been a standalone incident where the school did not have notice before about any of her behaviors, then I would say potentially no. But here we know

that this was a person who did have a history of inappropriate communications and actions with children. It was well known in the community. That is a very small community here in Indiana. So in my opinion, yes, I think there should be a close look at what the school may have done or not done that contributed to allow the students to be injured here. But here's the thing. Little did investigators know they would be dealing with even more egregious claims against Fortenberry very soon. So now we are going to the probable cause statement for Fortinbury's February 2025 charges, three counts of sexual miscarriage. conduct with a minor through intercourse dissemination of matter harmful to minors and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. So in December of 2024, Detective William says he was at the Morgan County Prosecutor's Office on an unrelated case when all of a sudden a woman comes in

asking to talk to somebody about Britney Fortenberry. William says, quote, the individual was reporting that her grandson had disclosed to her sexual acts that happened between him and Brittany approximately a year ago. So these events reportedly took place in October 2023 when Fortinberry was a teacher at Martinsville High School. According to the grandmother's statements, her grandson heard Fortinberry had been jailed for the alleged Instagram messages with the students at Eminence High, and he eventually revealed that Fortinberry had allegedly molested him. So the grandmother said that her grandson was, quote, given mushrooms from Brittany and started having sex with her. She said it first started by

Brittany sending naked pictures to the boys and that led to them having sex. And apparently this was prior to him turning 16 and there was also some sort of indication that she might harm herself if this ever got out. So Ashley, first of all, very interesting that you have this account, which is much more egregious, much more serious, comes out after the first charges. I imagine this happens a lot, right? We sometimes in these cases we talk about when a teacher is accused of wrong doing is this the start of the floodgates will more allegations come out you know one thing comes out and then you have other accounts not necessarily meaning that this is true but it's not uncommon that we see one set of allegations then leads to another set of allegations right

absolutely and i i would truly commend the the 17 and 18 year old who came forward and reported her behavior at the high school before it became even more agreed to because it allowed this younger boy to feel comfortable enough to report to his grandmother because he knew Brittany was in jail. So I think that, you know, that is something that can't be overlooked here, that there was this element of fear and threat that had been used to commit this crime if these allegations are true. So that's something that I think is important. So let me explain what happens. So Detective Williams does an interview with this grandson. And we're not going to get into a lot of the details from this interview because they are just incredibly too graphic. But the detective asked the teen why he thought he was there to talk to him. And the teen reportedly told him the way he looked at it. It was no different than a 30-year-old man and a 15-year-old girl. He said that it was still messed up and then it was child molestation. He said he's there because he doesn't want her to molest more kids. He said that there's some of the victim. who are considering talking about what happened, but there's others that don't want to talk about it.

I asked when he says, her, who he was referring to, and he says, Britney Fortenberry. He says her name might be Marie now and might have changed it. I would advise that Brittany's middle name is Marie. So, Ashley, again, this is quite the account, and if true, highlight the bravery of this young person to come forward to try to essentially protect other people, protect other teens. However, I will ask you, is it tougher to prove this case if we assume for a moment, you don't have the digital evidence like the charges regarding dissemination or communications. If this is based purely on the account of an alleged victim, a minor, is that enough to secure a conviction here? Is that as strong of a case?

What do you think? Again, assuming there's not a plethora of digital evidence to support this? I would say absolutely here. My read of the information in that affidavit shows incredible detail by that young man who came forward and a lot of events and occurrences and trips that could be verified through other evidence, circumstantial evidence. And I think that certainly there is not much reason to question most. motivation from the young man, given the circumstances as they're set forth in the documents. And it's interesting because when we talk about these stories where the alleged predator is a female and the victim is a young male, there are often comments about how the team

was lucky to be with an attractive older woman, but this is a victim. This is a very, very traumatic situation and it's allegedly a crime. I mean, the alleged victim in this case said, even though he might have thought that at first, oh, you know, he quickly changed his mind and realize what had happened. So according to statements that he apparently made to the detective, the teen would often hang out at Fort Berry's home with friends. And at one point, one of his male friends told the teen that he could have sex with Fort and Barry if he wanted to. And that is when he claims when he was 15, he was laying down on a bed at Fortenberry's trying to take a nap when he claimed she snuggled up next to him and eventually initiated sex. And he said multiple

times in the interview that it was weird, but he did it anyway. According to the teen, Fortinbury gave him mushrooms and was often high herself during their sexual encounters. He also claims that she would get mad at the teens if they didn't want to have sex. He told Detective Williams that he had sex with Fortinbury two or three times and that at least one of those encounters involved another teen at the same time. And then you got to hear this. So the probable cause statement reads, he added that Brittany's husband was a firefighter and that he knew what was going on with the victim and didn't say anything. Now, the teen later told the detective that Fort Berry told her that she and her husband were in an open relationship. Ashley, a lot to digest here.

If there's an issue, is there an issue, I should ask, in terms of credibility, if someone is drugged, whether they're an adult, whether they're a minor, if they're given some sort of substance, mushrooms, whatever it might be. Does that affect their credibility in terms of what actually happened between them and the alleged perpetrator? That's a really interesting question. And credibility is always a question for the jury in that situation. So the jury would be able to know that he was under the influence of a substance. And they would take that into consideration in hearing his testimony. And it would be up to them individually to weigh his evidence, weigh his credibility based on the facts and circumstances. Could the husband be compelled

to testify or are there spousal privilege issues? And he wouldn't be allowed to testify to the communications he had with his wife. But could he be compelled to testify and something else? Related to factual matters, yes. He would have privilege, spousal privilege, like you said, as to any communications that they had individually. But, you know, same thing in gathering evidence, his cell phone, his whereabouts, if he was, whether he was sharing the marital home or not, if there are cameras in the home, anything like that, he could be compelled to provide evidence. And when it comes to her husband, by the way, so on Tuesday, Fortinbury's husband,

Nicholas filed a verified petition for dissolution of marriage, according to the filing that you had gotten married in November 2020. They shared one biological child. The paperwork noted that their separation date was the same day that Fort Berry was arrested. By the way, real quick, even if they get divorced, those communications can still be privileged, right? Correct. Yes. If they occurred during the marriage. Okay, got it. Now, Metropolitan School District of Martinsville put out a statement about Fort Berry's time with the district saying this former employee was hired as a substitute teacher on October 24th, 2023, obtained a state issued emergency license and resigned from the MSD of Martinsville

on January 9th, 2024. The resignation was not related to sexual misconduct allegations. During the individual's employment period with the MSD of Martinsville, there were no identified reports of sexual misconduct to the administration or the anonymous tip line. We want to assure families that the MSD of Martinsville conducts a full criminal background check for all new employees as part of the standard hiring procedures. The background check report indicated no criminal activity for this former employee. I think that statement's really interesting, Ashley, because it's suggesting we didn't know about this. We found out when everybody else found out, right? Yeah, absolutely. And I think some of the information from the other affidavit

and Brittany's own statements in it about her relationships with children and boys. that she claims to have kind of taken under her wing in a caretaking relationship, giving them gifts, taking them on trips, buying them food. She herself reports that there were rumors and allegations about her relationships. So the school district, you know, the criminal background check is just one piece of the puzzle. There's still an ongoing duty to supervise your employees, supervise children that are in your custody and care. well look miss fortbury as next expected in court in april these are allegations she's innocent until proven guilty but you know some interesting pieces of evidence and testimony that might be

up against her and a jury trial is scheduled for june but obviously that date could be pushed off um you know ashley thanks so much for coming on really appreciate you taking the time and uh thank you for your insight as always absolutely thank you all right everybody that's all we have for you right now here on sidebar thank you so much for joining us and as always please subscribe and come check us out on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time.