A 24-year-old Texas teacher who was having sex with her 13-year-old student turned herself in to police on Wednesday after she told them she had an abortion once social workers discovered their relationship.
Alexandria Vera, a former English teacher at Stovall Middle School outside of Houston, has been charged with child sex abuse. According to police, Vera met the eighth-grade boy during summer school and began having sex with him last September. By January she was pregnant and had an abortion the following month.
Vera told police that she terminated the pregnancy after members of the Texas Department of Child Protective Services unexpectedly confronted her at school in February about the relationship, according to an affidavit filed by police. Vera initially “denied the pregnancy and relationship,” but later confirmed it to police, the affidavit states. (The school principal alerted police after receiving a tip about the relationship.)
Vera told authorities that she connected outside of the classroom with the boy over Instagram, eventually meeting him to make out and then have sex when his parents weren’t home. In October, she met his parents at a parent-teacher conference. Then he brought her over for dinner and introduced her as his girlfriend.
“The family was supportive and excited about the baby,” the affidavit states.
The boy regularly slept over at Vera’s house, according to the affidavit, and the two had sex almost every day for months. In the morning, she’d drive him back home so that he could catch the bus to school.
“That kid was always over [at Vera’s house in Spring] and she always told [neighbors] it was her brother,” a neighbor told KHOU. “She was having a lot of kids in her home. There was drinking in the front. We always found beer bottles and beer cans on her side of the lawn and half of the (teens) did not look older than high school, maybe.”
An officer with the school district had Vera’s phone forensically analyzed and “found many messages” consistent with Vera’s story and with the victim’s interviews. The boy told investigators that a sexual relationship with his teacher had, in fact, occurred.
According to school district spokesman Mike Keeney, Vera was removed from her position in April 2015.
“When the allegation was made… the teacher was immediately removed from the school and placed on administrative leave,” Keeney said. “The safety and security of Aldine ISD’s students and staff remains a priority of the school district.”
Vera turned herself in to the Montgomery County Jail in Conroe, Texas around 9 a.m. on Wednesday morning and was released shortly thereafter on a $100,000 bond.