A Mission Viejo middle-school teacher, falsely accused of committing lewd and lascivious acts with a minor male student, had charges dropped against her last week — nearly one year after her case was first made public.
Kristen Michelle Roush’s problems began when innocent gestures she made were misconstrued and the mother of a 15-year-old pupil made false allegations against her, going so far as calling the police after she dropped her son off at his home one day after school.
Roush is a teacher at La Paz Intermediate School. According to an interview with local Fox affiliate in Los Angeles KTLA, her attorney David Wohl said the pupil “made claims that she kissed him that were simply and totally untrue and were never going to be proven in a court of law.”
Wohl said “the most contact Kristen had with her students, and it was more than one, were hugs, innocent hugs.”
Her pupil’s mother reportedly jumped to conclusions when she dropped him off at his home after school on Oct. 24, 2014. Roush told KTLA that the kid’s mother said “you are not supposed to be with her,” to which Roush replied, “I was under the impression he had permission and she said ‘kids lie all the time.'”
The woman shouted at Roush prompting her two children sitting in the back seat of the car to start crying. The woman then called 911. When Roush arrived home that same afternoon, she was arrested on suspicion of four counts of child molestation.
Those charges were dropped last week as part of a plea deal in which Roush agreed to admit to one misdemeanor charge of battery on school property. She received it for giving that student an innocent hug. She was also sentenced to three years of formal probation for the misdemeanor and agreed to resign her teaching position as part of the deal.
Despite the chaos Roush endured, Wohl says his client “is a very smart woman, and she has great family support and has weathered this fairly well. She knew she was innocent.”
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