A North Carolina high school teacher has been arrested after the mother of one of her students used a location tracking app to catch her allegedly “engaged in sexual activity” with her son in the teacher’s car.
The mom, who has remained unidentified, noticed via the Life360 app she had installed on his device that her 18-year-old son was near a local park on November 29 instead of rugby practice.
The concerned parent then drove to the location and allegedly found her son and 26-year-old South Mecklenburg High School teacher Gabriela Cartaya-Neufeld naked in her car, according to WSOC:
After taking pictures of Cartaya-Neufeld’s vehicle and license plate, the student’s mother called the police to the scene, who took the educator into custody.
“Prosecutors said the mother heard about the relationship over Thanksgiving,” prompting her to already be on high alert when she realized her son had skipped practice to be with his teacher, the local outlet reported.
According to the outlet, prosecutors said there had also been rumors circulating on campus about Cartaya-Neufeld and the 18-year-old student for a long time.
Administrators even questioned both the student and teacher about it at one time.
Now, state’s attorneys have accused Cartaya-Neufeld, a science teacher, of having sex with her student in her car, inside his mother’s home, and at her own residence.
While an 18-year-old is a legal adult, the young man’s age would not negate the criminality of a teacher-student relationship, so Cartaya-Neufeld was hit with five counts of felony sexual activity with a student by a teacher.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools said she started working for the school system in 2020.
The principal of South Mecklenburg High School released a statement regarding the incident, saying:
Although I cannot discuss personnel information, I wanted to inform you that we take this matter seriously. We share your concerns regarding this situation. The safety and security of our students and staff is of the utmost importance to us all, and while this is a troubling situation, it is being managed by law enforcement.
Cartaya-Neufeld bailed out of jail, but the judge ordered that electronic monitoring be put on her out of concern that the student-teacher pair may run away together.
After her first court hearing the day after she was caught, WSOC attempted to chase her down for a statement, to no avail. She is due back in court on December 19:
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