A 2006 UT graduate who is now a high school teacher was arrested last week and charged with having sex with a 16-year-old student.
Christina Butler, 33, was a history major and biology minor who began teaching at Middleton High School in August. She was arrested Oct. 23 and charged with felony lewd and lascivious battery.
The next morning, she was released from Hillsborough County jail on $7,500 bail, and the school board suspended her with pay until further notice, records show.
A stakeout for car thieves in Tampa last week led police to Christina Butler’s vehicle, which was borrowed by the student and five of his friends, a report indicated.
The six teenage boys caught officers’ attention when they were wearing green and white Halloween skeleton gloves as they left an apartment complex on bicycles. Moments later the cops saw the same boys driving Butler’s blue Jeep Cherokee erratically, TPD said.
The officers figured they were stopping kids who were joy riding, but then one of the occupants revealed that Butler and one of the other boys were in a relationship.
The cops questioned Butler, who at first denied the allegations before confessing that she had sex with the student more than a dozen times, police records show.
This was news to the Tampa police officers, but it turned out that it wasn’t the first time that Middleton High School had heard of Butler and her student’s relationship.
Middleton student Shatavia Kendricks, 15, was encouraged by her mom to tell the assistant principal about rumors that were circulating the school.
When she did, the school opted not to look into the situation and instead suspended Kendricks for continuing to tell the story, or as the school district put it, for “spreading gossip.”
Her mom acquired an attorney who last Friday hand-delivered a letter of intent to sue the school district. The 16 year-old boy also filed an intent to sue the school district.
Leave a Reply