An award-winning Arkansas teacher has been jailed after admitting to having a sexual relationship with a student.
Leah Queen, 44, pleaded guilty to sexual assault earlier this week after previously pleading not guilty.
Queen, who is from Oklahoma, was a physical education teacher at Gentry Intermediate School in Gentry, near Fayetteville.
The assault happened 13 years ago in 2010, when the student was 17 and Queen was 31.
Although the age of consent in Arkansas is 16, teachers are not allowed to have sexual relations with students until they are 18.
The former student documented in detail in court how sexual contact between them came about in the summer of 2010.
An Arkansas teacher, Leah Queen, 44, has been sentenced to 58 days in prison after admitting to having a sexual relationship with a student
Queen, who was a gym teacher, earlier this week pleaded guilty to sexual assault despite dating the student 13 years ago in 2010
In 2019, she received a Golden Apple Award after being nominated for local TV station KNWA by one of her students
The affidavit stated that Queen and the victim “engaged in deviant sexual activity” prior to the minor’s senior year of high school.
She had been on a camping trip when she kissed the victim. A diary kept by the student also listed various other instances of intimacy between the two.
According to an affidavit, Queen had sex with the student in her office, in her bathroom at school, and even at home.
The student’s parents, the Queen’s ex-husband and another former school teacher all confirmed several details of the student’s allegations.
Queen, who was teaching grades 3 through 5 at the time of her arrest, had been a teacher in the Gentry School District for more than 20 years.
Queen had also made a big change in terms of her weight
Queen was a physical education teacher and accepted the role by losing half her body weight in ten years
It’s a major crash for the former teacher, who won her school’s 2022 Teacher of the Year award
An affidavit said Queen became friends with the victim after a basketball game and the two then began socializing outside of school hours.
The Queen’s ex also reported that he had seen the victim in bed with his ex-wife on several occasions.
Benton County District Judge Brad Karren sentenced Queen to a six-year state-supervised suspended sentence and sentenced her to 58 days in Benton County prison.
She was also ordered not to have any contact with the victim.
Queen, who taught grades 3 through 5 at the time of her arrest, had been a teacher in the Gentry School District for more than 20 years and initially pleaded not guilty but later changed her plea.
Queen initially pleaded not guilty but changed her plea to guilty
Queen was a physical education teacher and accepted the role by losing half her body weight in 11 years
Queen is pictured with a current boyfriend, who regularly features in her social media posts
Queen will never be allowed to set foot in a classroom again. She must also register as a sex offender and complete a sex offender treatment program
As part of the consent form, she also agreed never to be employed as a teacher again.
Queen is required to register as a sex offender and complete a sex offender treatment program.
Queen had undergone a huge transformation in recent years as she embraced her role as a gym teacher and lost hundreds of pounds in weight over the course of a decade, from 300lbs to 165lbs.
It’s a major downfall for the former teacher, who was named “Teacher of the Year” at her school in 2022 and picked up a Golden Apple Award in 2019 after being nominated for local TV station KNWA by one of her young students.
“When I was a girl in second grade, I had a teacher who didn’t feel like I was.” I just wanted to love my babies. “I have a passion and a drive for it and they love me back,” Queen told the broadcaster upon accepting her award.
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