Law&Crime Sidebar - Teacher Showed Racy Photos to Teen Student: Cops

Episode Date: April 3, 2025

Kerston Raines, 25, is facing a misdemeanor charge in Allen County, Kentucky after a student reported that Raines showed her nude photos. The photos were reportedly sent between Raines and a male teacher. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber analyzes why this incident is different from other teacher sexual misconduct cases with former criminal prosecutor Dan Schorr.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Find out if you're overpaying on car insurance with FinanceBuzz's FREE tool at https://financebuzz.com/sidebar. Drivers save an average of $600+ per year! Just answer a few quick questions to unlock your lowest rates.HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea & Jay CruzScript 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. A young teacher is in a lot of trouble after a student reportedly saw nude photos of her and another teacher. Was it malicious or a terrible accident? Either way, this educator seems like she is well on her way to learning a painful lesson. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. 25-year-old Kirsten Raines is out on Bond right now after she was arrested for allegedly showing nude photos of herself and a man to a student at Allen County Scottsville High School in Scottsville, Kentucky.

This tiny town, fewer than 5,000 people. likely a buzz right now with the news that one of their teachers was arrested, but it's interesting this case, not as simple, maybe not as straightforward as it may seem. So to talk about this, I want to bring on former criminal prosecutor, Dan Shore, who actually now heads up a firm that specializes in sexual misconduct investigations at schools. And you've got a book coming out, Dan, about this very topic, right? Yeah, my second novel is coming out in August. It's called Open Bar. People could learn more if they search on Substack. I have a week newsletter talking about these types of issues and fiction writing so what

question better to ask you to start this off then why are we seeing more and more and more teachers especially female teachers either being called out or arrested or accused of inappropriate interactions with students whether that's actual sexual contact or messaging or grooming or allegedly displaying obscene material what is going on here is there something that's happening where we're seeing a prevalence of these kinds of cases, or is it better reporting, more technology? I mean, things like that.

Talk to us about it. I think it's more the latter. I became a sex crimes prosecutor 25 years ago, and I've been seeing these cases for a long time. Just they didn't get the type of publicity they're getting now. I think that's for a number of reasons. One is that once it is known that someone's accused of something like this, we see with media and social media,

the information spreads more. We also live in a time now where people are more emboldened. are more emboldened to talk about and report being a part of any type of sexual misconduct incident. I think a couple of decades ago, there was a lot more shame for the victim to talk about it publicly now because of the MeToo movement and other societal evolutions,

more and more people when they experience something like this or their families are willing to come forward about it. So I think those are reasons. I don't think it's happening more often, but it's certainly being reported more and people are hearing about it more often now. Hey, I just want to take a minute to really thank our sponsor, FinanceBuzz.

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talk to anybody on the phone. So just click the link below in the description and pinned in the comments or scan the QR code on screen to see how much you could save. I said it before, I'll say it again. I find this case to be a little different. I find it a little different. I wonder if there could be a valid defense here because I want to lay it out here. So it rains from nearby Franklin, Kentucky, this is near the Tennessee border, was arrested by the Allen County Sheriff's Department on April 1st. And I want to read you from the citation report that was filed with the court. And it reads, while conducting an investigation at the Allen County High School involving Kirsten and another staff member,

I was informed of Raines showing a student nude pictures. I then talked to this student, and they advised that Raines had shown her text messages between Raines and a male teacher. In these messages were pictures of the male teacher's erect penis and Raines breasts. I contacted Raines, and she came to the sheriff's office to talk with me. I read Raines her Miranda warning, and she still wished to proceed with talking to me. Through the discussion, Raines advised that pictures had been sent between her and the male teacher of each other's nude private areas. Raines did state that a student could have seen these pictures on her laptop that is synced to her phone while at school. She stated that she does leave her laptop open and students have the opportunity to look at her computer and may have seen messages.

that were between her and this male teacher. Raines also stated that students get access to her phone when selecting what music to listen to in class and they may have accessed these pictures while on her phone and that these photos were synced to her personal laptop at school. She acknowledged that students may be able to easily access these images. But again, it seems to be that she's saying she didn't intentionally do this. Now, according to a Facebook post,

welcoming her to Allen County Scottsville High School from the summer of 2024, Raines was an English teacher. And there is a lot to break down here with this. So Raines was charged with one count of distribution of obscene matter to minors. Because it's her first offense, it is a Class A misdemeanor. And according to Kentucky's criminal code, a person is guilty of distribution of obscene material to minors. When knowing a person to be a minor or having possession of such facts that he should reasonably know that such person is a minor, and with knowledge of the content and character of the material,

knowingly sends or causes to be sent or exhibits or offers to a distribute obscene material to a minor now Dan I think we can both agree this is obscene material if this is in fact what it is but I don't know if she's guilty of this what do you think right there's a lot to break down here as you said first of all she's 25 years old I do a lot of investigations a lot of them were with colleges universities and grad students the real world that we live in is it's very very common for people of that age to be sharing naked photos with people they're dating when they're single.

That's just the reality of the world we live in right now. So there's a huge difference between her having that on her phone, which a lot of people her age do, and someone accidentally seeing it at school. And there's a big difference between that and her intentionally showing it to a student who is in her school and she's an authority figure as a teacher. So that's a huge point that needs to be investigated. And obviously, she's contesting the part about it being intentional. If it was accidental, that's still wrong.

There should be disciplinary action. She needs to be more careful. But I don't think that would lead to an arrest here. The arrest is really predicated on the fact that it was allegedly done intentionally. And that's a really, really important factor here. But it seems like it's relying so much on the account of the student, right? And where does that tell? What does that tell you?

Right. Because the teacher is saying that it was an accident that somehow the student was accessing it. She talked about ways that could have happened. either it was on an open laptop or was on her phone that students were allowed to access to play music in the classroom. And again, if it had happened accidentally, it's still a major problem. She should be disciplined by her school, but I don't see an arrest coming out of that if it's not intentional. So how do you determine whether it's intentional? The word of the student or other students who are aware of it is crucial there to see what they are saying, how they were

reportedly given these photos, other information, and then you have to judge the credibility of the people or the person saying that they, it was intentionally shown to them. So that's, that's a tough thing to show. And were there other witnesses? We don't know yet. That's important also. I guess I'm so, you know, I'm jaded in a way because I've been covering so many cases where there have been allegations of intentionally sending explicit messages to students, actually messaging them on social media platforms or either to text messages. This one feels a little bit different. Now, according to the sentencing guidelines in Kentucky, this is a Class A misdemeanor,

punishable by 90 days to 12 months in jail, a fine of up to $500. Before we move on, do you think that she would actually get jail time for this? If it was intentional, I could see jail time resulting. If that was proven beyond a reasonable doubt that a teacher took a student who's underage and showed them explicit photos of male genitalia in school, that would definitely be something that I could see jail time resulting from. But as I said before, if this was an accidental disclosure through either an open laptop or access to a phone

for selecting music in a classroom, that's irresponsible, but I don't think that would merit an arrest and a prosecution and certainly not jail time. I want your opinion on this. So according to reporting from WBKO, Allen County Schools Superintendent Travis Hamby said that Raines will be placed on leave pending further investigation and released a statement. We are aware of a situation involving an employee of Allen County Schools. The district takes such matter seriously and is currently gathering information.

While the individual has not yet been available for comment, the employee will be placed on leave pending further investigation in accordance with district policies. Because this is a personal matter and out of respect for the individual's rights in due process, we are unable to provide additional details at this time. Could the school be held civilly liable in any way here? They could, and there's a couple of reasons why. One is if they knew about this and didn't act on it, that happens in a lot of cases that I investigate. So I don't know the particular circumstances here that hasn't been made public.

But if somehow a school is aware of it, if they knew that the teacher had this on a computer or on a phone, if other authority figures were aware that nothing was done to stop that, or if a student reported that, nothing was done, there could be civil liability. If it was a case of accidental viewing by a student when the teacher had it, I guess technically there could be civil liability, but I think there's much less exposure for the school if there was no way they could have been aware of this as a potential threat to have a student see this type of material. Assuming for a moment that this is the worst case scenario that she intentionally showed a student

or students this material. And in light of what we talked about before, a lot of these case is coming up. Is there a problem in the hiring practices? Is there a problem in background checks? Or you can do the most thorough background check, right? They can check every, you know, they dot every eye, cross every T, but it's impossible to predict what people are going to be up to even when they're in these positions. Well, that's a great point. And a lot of the answer depends on what they would have found in a background check that was thorough. Maybe they did one, maybe they didn't. But if she had, let's say, hypothetically, some prior public this information, either in arrest or litigation or something like that that showed that this was

something that happened in the past. And certainly that would be a failure on the part of the school to then put that person in the classroom, most likely based on the public information that doesn't exist. If someone has not been arrested, they've never been sued. If there's nothing in the media or social media about this type of behavior, the most thorough background check is not going to find out about this potential incident. And there's no psychological evaluations that should be conducted before because you're talking about not somebody working in an accounting office, you're talking about somebody working with children. Right. So the way that these background checks are done, and I've been a part of some of these background checks, you're going

to interview maybe former employers, maybe people who were their teachers or administrators in schools. You're going to look for references. You're going to interview the teacher, hopefully more than once to get a sense of them. Maybe you're going to have them do a sample a lesson and you're going to judge how they are in class and you're going to then make a determination about whether that person seems appropriate to be in your school. But if it's someone who's very young in their 20s and they have photos and they're single and they have naked photos on their phone, there's no way someone who's hiring them would be able to know that they had the potential to share it if that hadn't been done in a way that was publicly known before. So a lot of times there's no

way to know everything that someone's going to do once they're on the job. the male teacher, assuming all this is true, would the male teacher have any sort of claim against Raines? Because I imagine he didn't give any kind of consent for these photos to be shared, especially with a student. Talk to me about that. Well, first of all, certainly if it's intentional, absolutely. If someone is sharing, as often happens, naked photos with someone just for that person's own viewing and use, and that person shares it with someone else, and especially it's a student that undermines that person's workplace environment. Imagine you're a teacher who, shared it with someone else who you thought was an adult you thought was single and there was

some kind of interactions between the two of you but all of a sudden now everyone in the school knows that it was shared with a student absolutely that that would be an issue for that male teacher but if it was an accidental disclosure i think certainly it would be upsetting for that male teacher but i think there's much less of a cause of action if it was an accidental disclosure so intent continues to be the really important factor here by the way i just want to go back to this idea of if it was her personal cell phone or laptop what is her responsibility? I mean, we, if it's not company issued, and it is her own personal device, are we responsible by accident we leave something open or somebody has access to it? Does that

seem fair? I mean, look, people shouldn't be sending these things. Look, you can't judge, it's not against the law to be sending people, you're in a relationship with it or whatever, intimate photos, but should you be police, should we be policing it if it's, let's say, for example, accidentally left there, either on a criminal context or a disciplinary action. Again, I'm not justifying it, but I'm just trying to understand it a little bit more. Right. So I see this all the time with people this age. They're sharing intimate photos. This is just a common thing with people, especially in their 20s. And I think people my age and older are always shocked and appalled. Maybe they're right.

Maybe they're wrong. But this is just the world we live in right now. So it's not surprising that a 25-year-old single person had these photos. The question is, what steps do they take to be secure about it, to not have an accidental disclosure? So if you know you have this on your personal device, you shouldn't bring that personal device into school. And if you do bring it into school, you should really make sure that no one else can see it. So if you know you have naked photos on your phone, you shouldn't be giving that phone to

students to then select music in the classroom. Or if you know you have it on your laptop, you should. should not leave your laptop open when you're not there monitoring what's on the laptop. So that's extremely irresponsible if it happened that way. I think there's significant disciplinary action that's appropriate by a school. But I don't see that leading to an arrest and a prosecution and certainly not jail time if it was accidental. But people have to be responsible about the content on their phone.

Everyone has content on their devices, even if it's not intimate photos, that is not always appropriate for a student to see. And you need to be careful wherever you are. Are people always in their lives interacting with children, whether it's their children, other people's children. And you make sure that if you have something on your device, that they don't have access to that device. That's part of being an adult, and that's important. By the way, there's something else that was odd about this. Why would the officer have been originally investigating this as maybe an apparent relationship of some type between two teachers at the same school before finding out what was going on with the alleged sharing of this material?

I mean, that part was interesting, the timeline of it. I'm not entirely sure what prompted the initial investigation. Right. I noticed that, too, from the public information, it's not clear. So what spurred law enforcement to look into that part? Maybe they were, when they were notified that there were these photos that they thought there might be something even more improper than what's been alleged here. And that's why they started digging deeper into it.

But we don't know at this point. And a lot of times, law enforcement keeps their cards close to the vest at this point. they'll have enough to make an arrest and charging decision, but they won't necessarily reveal everything until later when it's possibly going to trial. I also mentioned litigation against the potential school in a worst case scenario. Would the parents of a child have a claim against Reins if this is actually true? Yeah, and again, especially if it was intentional. 100%.

What about negligence? It was negligence. Yeah, if there was, if someone who's an underage person, in a school is given a phone to, as the teacher said, change the music in the classroom and there's explicit photos on there, including male janitalia, then absolutely that's something that I could see civil exposure for that family could bring litigation about. Because when you send your child to a school, you're not expecting the teacher to hand them that kind of material. That's completely inappropriate, obviously.

By the way, Raines was required to post 10% of a $10,000 bonds. So $1,000 according to the jail website, and that seems reasonable, right, considering what she's facing? Yes, definitely. She's not facing significant incarceration. There's no evidence to show she's a flight risk. So in those situations, usually don't have a high amount of bail or bond. Do you think that this case is actually going to proceed forward, or do you think we're looking at possibly, let's say there really is evidence she did to do this intentionally, knowingly. Do you think that this would proceed to trial or do you think that there would be some sort of deal that's worked out?

Most cases in situations like this lead to a plea bargain, and maybe even if it was intentional, maybe there's a lower charge that she will admit to and plead to in return for not having any jail time. That's a common outcome in situations involving this type of incident. But a lot of it depends on how strong the prosecution's cases, how credible they believe the witness will be in front of a jury, victim, the alleged victim, and also how much the defendant wants to contest this in court, whether they're willing to take a plea bargain and admit some kind of wrongdoing or they want to push it to trial. See, I think if she's really taking this argument, I didn't do this intentionally to plead guilty to it. That might not be on the table for her. I don't think she,

and I've never met her. I don't know. I'm just based on the reporting. I think she would want to fight this and say this was a complete accident. Yes, it was a lapse in judgment, but I didn't, intentionally show obscene material to a student. I didn't do that. I think that that's significant here. Right, but what if there's a plea bargain that says you'll agree that you did something negligently and you agree to go on probation? Okay.

Yeah. There's you everything else that happens in the process and the risk of jail time. I could see that as a likely outcome here. If that matches the respondent, the defendant's goal in terms of avoiding incarceration and, yeah, I, I agree with you. I think it's just, I don't. I don't know her, but I'm just saying I don't think she would admit, even if there was no incarceration to say, I intentionally did this in order, because that is a stain. That is a stain on her career. That's a stain on her reputation. But look, I'm not defending her. Maybe she did really do this intentionally. And that the students accurate about what happened. If that's the case, forget everything I just said. So we'll say her next court date has not been announced yet. But I just thought it was an interesting case. You said it to me before we came on. There's a lot of black and white cases. this may be a little bit more gray. So Dan Schor, thank you so much for breaking it down with me.

I appreciate it. Jesse, it's always great to talk with you. 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 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcasts. 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. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.