REDLANDS – A former school teacher, who admitted to having sex with underage students including one who fathered a child with her, was released from jail last week.
Laura Whitehurst, 29, had received a year-long sentence last summer, but was released with more than six months left to serve.
The case came to light early last summer after Whitehurst gave birth to a girl. When word got back to the parents of the 17-year-old father, who was reportedly in attendance at the birth, an investigation was launched into Whitehurst’s relationship.
During the course of that investigation, two other former students came forward to report that they had sexual relationships with Whitehurst. In San Bernardino Superior Court on July 30, she pleaded guilty to six felony counts that were connected to three victims.
In those charges were four counts of unlawful sexual intercourse and two counts of oral copulation with a person under age 18. The original charges included 41 felony counts, which carried a maximum sentence of 29 years. The remaining counts were dismissed during her sentencing.
Whitehurst, who is the oldest daughter of two area educators, will be required to register as a sex offender as a condition of her release. She must also wear a GPS tracking device, according to county officials.
Originally, Whitehurst was sentenced to 365 days in jail plus five years probation, the sentence pronounced on Aug. 28.
In a similar case over a decade earlier, Rialto Eisenhower High School football coach Glenn Thompkins was charged with having sex with an underage female student. He received a similar sentence as Whitehurst – a year in jail, but was released after serving approximately half that time.
Both Whitehurst and Thompkins were students in their respective school districts, having returned following their college educations. Whitehurst taught at every Redlands-based high school campus, including student teaching at Redlands East Valley, also serving as a substitute, her first fulltime job at Redlands High School and, eventually, Orangewood continuation school and, finally, at Citrus Valley, where she also served as an adviser in campus clubs. Reportedly, she had sex with underage students while teaching at Redlands, later moving to Citrus Valley.
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LATimes: Ex-teacher convicted of student sex released
