GASTON COUNTY, N.C. -- A 23-year veteran Gaston County teacher who admitted to having sex with an 18-year-old student at her high school will not spend time behind bars.
Teika Helton, 46, agreed to a deferred sentencing arrangement on Tuesday that places her on probation for two years and requires her to perform 200 community service hours.
Helton, who was the 2005 Gaston County Teacher of the Year, must also surrender her teaching license.
Under the agreement, if Helton completes the requirements, her record will be wiped.
District Attorney Locke Bell was concerned about bringing the case to trial, calling it “he said-she said.”
Helton and the 18-year-old South Point High recent graduate both admitted they had sex. The student would have been of consenting age, however, under North Carolina law, a teacher is not allowed to have sexual contact with a student.
Helton insists the sexual contact took place after the student graduated. The teen said it happened while he was still in school. There were text messages exchanged between the two prior to graduation that the prosecutors say were “improper” but did not prove when the sexual encounter took place.
“If we had gone to trial and the jury had said 'we don’t know which date, we’re not sure,' then there would be no punishment at all. There would be nothing. She would be teaching again,” says Gaston County District Attorney Locke Bell.
The teen’s mother is angry with the deal, saying she believes the punishment will allow Helton to target another teenager.
“She robbed him of his innocence,” the mother says. “She’s a sick individual for having done this.”
The mother says in the weeks after the sexual encounter, Helton befriended her, inviting her to college football games and social events. The mother says Helton never let on that she had slept with her son.
The mother shudders, thinking about the fact that one of her peers slept with her son.
“We’re a year apart in age and it’s sickening,” she says.
The teen’s mother says she learned what happened from a family friend and then tipped off the authorities.
Helton opted not to make a statement in court on Tuesday. Her attorney says Helton knows what she did was wrong, and “lost everything” because of what happened. Helton was married at the time of the affair. She has two children still in the school system.
The teen’s mother believes the case would have been brought to trial if the genders were reversed and it was an adult male teacher and a female student.
Even the mother admits, she never thought to talk her son about possible dangers of teacher-student relationships.
“Mothers, I beg you, talk to your sons about these pedophile women,” the teen’s mother warned in the hallway after the court hearing. “It makes me very angry. It makes me sad that our justice system doesn’t give a punishment that people like this deserve.”