Teacher gets 4 to 10 years for sexual seduction

Kim Smith

Thursday, July 19, 2001 | 10:33 a.m.

After calling him a predator who steals children's youth and trust, District Judge Sally Loehrer Wednesday sentenced a former high school teacher to four to 10 years in prison for seducing a 14-year-old student.

Jeremy Green, 27, was originally expected to get a two- to 10-year sentence after pleading guilty in May to two counts of statutory sexual seduction and one count of open or gross lewdness.

Deputy District Attorney Mary Kay Holthus told Loehrer that the negotiated sentence was changed, however, when she learned that Green had several trysts with the girl after he pleaded guilty.

Holthus told the judge that because he was going to jail anyway, Green told the girl he may as well take her virginity.

The girl's father pleaded with Loehrer to send a message to other would-be teacher-predators through the sentence.

The father said that when he learned in November 2000 that Green had been flirting with his daughter, he rejected his first impulse and instead reported him to the administrators at Mojave High School. He was led to believe that Green would be suspended and reprimanded and that would be the end of the matter.

He learned in February -- when Green was arrested -- that the inappropriate behavior had continued, he said.

His daughter, who had always been a standout athlete and honor student, is now on suicide watch at a local mental health facility, he said. She has turned into an anti-social teenager who is defiant and devious and dreams of one day marrying Green.

Struggling for composure, the man said his entire family struggles daily with the havoc wreaked by Green. His other daughter and his wife, who is a teacher, are subjected to taunts and inappropriate questions all of the time.

His wife wants everyone to know that most teachers are honorable, despite Green and seven other school district employees arrested this year for inappropriate sexual behavior, the man said.