Wednesday, September 19, 2001
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Wednesday, September 19, 2001 |
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Judge gives teen substitute teacher six months in prison for improper conduct By JOHN
MUNFORD
A local teen charged with displaying sexually explicit Web sites to eighth graders while serving as a substitute teacher at Whitewater Middle School last year was sentenced to six months in prison by Fayette County State Court Judge Fletcher Sams Friday afternoon. Charlie Sheets Jr. will also face 30 months probation, a $3,000 fine and character development counseling. Sams also ordered Sheets to stay off Board of Education property, including athletic events, and refrain from supervising or teaching children while on probation. An appeal of the case has already been filed. A six-member jury found Sheets guilty of three counts of deprivation of a minor child after his trial last week. His attorney, Scott Ballard, said Sheets' conduct was inappropriate but did not reach the level of criminal conduct. A number of students testified during the trial that Sheets was aware the sexually explicit Web sites were being displayed for the entire class on a nearby television set. It was also testified that Sheets made remarks that he would not get in trouble because his father is an assistant principal in the school system. His father, Charlie Sheets Sr., was not an assistant principal at the school when the incident occurred. Sgt. Thomas Pope of the Fayette County Sheriff's department testified that his investigation led to a listing of the web sites the computer visited that day and several days before which was found on the computer's hard drive. Pope testified that although the list showed the time each site was accessed, it could not show how long the images were on the screen. One of the sites showed pictures of a model clothed only in a towel. Another web site showed a video clip of two men in a shower together, one dressed in a thong. Some students testified how, before one class, Sheets drew an anatomically correct male "hangman" figure on the board, with a graphic reference to his male anatomy. Other students testified that Sheets was upset when the computer couldn't call up a Web site with pictures from a class trip to Costa Rica which reportedly had photos of two students in bikinis.
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