Idaho former teacher pleads guilty to raping boy who was adopted just days before sexual assault

A former Idaho schoolteacher will face prison time after she pleaded guilty to raping a boy who had been adopted just days before she sexually assaulted him.

Jessica Lawson, 36, accepted a plea deal for felony sexual battery and charges of felony rape of a minor, the New York Post reported. Lawson had previously faced charges of felony delivery of a controlled substance and misdemeanor dispensing alcohol to a minor for reportedly giving the 16-year-old boy marijuana and alcohol, but those charges were dropped as part of the plea deal.

‘My son is going to take a long time to heal, and he doesn’t even know the wounds that he has yet.’

The judge ordered Lawson to not have contact with the victim for 20 years.

As Blaze News previously reported on the teacher sex scandal, an officer with the Saint Anthony Police Department pulled over a vehicle for having no visible taillights on Nov. 6, 2023. A teen boy was driving the vehicle, but police allegedly determined the car belonged to Lawson.

The teenager told the police officer that Lawson allowed him to drive her car “due to her being too drunk to drive,” according to the police report.

The teen admitted to police that he had consumed marijuana, and the officer drove him home, according to court documents.

The next morning, the boy’s parents contacted the Saint Anthony Police Department to report that their son had an improper relationship with Lawson.

Lawson was a teacher at South Fremont High School at the time.

The boy allegedly told investigators that Lawson got intoxicated and provided him with marijuana before the pair had sex.

Court documents said Lawson admitted to picking up the teen from his house, taking him to her house, and providing him with alcohol. However, she purportedly denied supplying marijuana to the boy but confessed that she had the drug in her home.

Lawson allegedly denied that “anything else had occurred.”

The victim’s father said his child was adopted just days before the crime came to light, and the victim grew up in foster homes.

“It takes a village to raise a young man, especially a young man that has been in and out of foster care, that has never known what it’s like to have a mom and a dad,” the father said in court, according to the East Idaho News. “My son is going to take a long time to heal, and he doesn’t even know the wounds that he has yet. He’s not going to understand those wounds until he’s a parent, and he’s sending his daughter or son … to the house of a parent that he trusts.”

The victim’s mother added, “We brought [the victim] in because he needed somebody, and he didn’t have anybody … It was pretty quick that we realized this is a really great kid, and he’s wonderful, and he should be in our family.”

The victim’s mother also said, “He’s got a lot of problems because he didn’t have a mom and dad that taught him how to recognize safe people.” She then told Lawson: “And you took advantage of that … she knew she could get something from him.”

Lawson apologized to the victim, his family, and the community. She blamed an abusive relationship of 15 years for being the “catalyst” for her crimes.

“I alone am responsible for my actions, but I believe [a prior] relationship was the catalyst that set me down the path to where I am today,” Lawson stated. “I want to apologize to the victim and his family for any pain that I have caused. I want to apologize to the community and anyone I’ve let down.”

The boy’s parents claimed there was a double standard in the case because Lawson is a female.

Senior District Judge Stephen Dunn retorted, “This is probably the sixth time I’ve dealt with a case like this, where the defendant was a female teacher. Sometimes the victims are male, and sometimes they’re female. There isn’t a double standard. The standards are the same. A person underage does not have the legal ability to consent to this kind of behavior. The responsibility is all on the defendant.”

A spokesperson for the Fremont County School District told Law & Crime that Lawson had worked as a high school teacher from 2021 to the spring of 2023.

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