Kimberly Lynne Umphlett, a teacher in North Carolina and employee of Dirty Dick’s Crab House (according to her Facebook Page), has been arrested for sex with an underage student. The New York Daily News is reporting today that 24-year old Kimberly Lynne Umphlett was arrested and charged with felonious sex offense for being in a relationship with an 11th grade student who attended Currituck County High School in the city of Barco. Court documents indicate that the sexual relationship with the student began in April of this year and continued until May. Public records indicate that Kimberly Lynne Umphlett has lived in Kill devil hills, North Carolina and Gates, North Carolina. It is unclear if the student is male or female.
Authorities learned about the case when school administrators alerted them about the inappropriate relationship. Detectives say the student confided in another teacher about the affair, leading that teacher to tell school administrators. Kimberly Lynne Umphlett was fired from her position at the Currituck County High School, where she had worked as an English teacher since August 2013.
Kimberly Umphlett turned herself in to authorities. Bond was set at $5,000. Umphlett was released after bonding out of jail. As of now, no trial date has been indicated. The number of teachers who are sexually involved with students is staggering.
In another recent case, 25-year old Carrie Miller, a teacher at Johnson Country Central High School in Tecumseh, Nebraska, was sent to prison for sex with a 15-year old student. Carrie Miller, who taught Spanish at the high school, was involved with the underage student for a year.
In Florida, Alecia Dotson, a 45-year old teacher’s aide at Highland Grove Elementary School was arrested for attempting to have sex with an 11-year old boy in a movie theater. Authorities say that Alecia Dotson was a mentor to the 5th grade boy but had developed “a crush” on him. When police arrested Dotson, she had a strawberry lubricant in her possession.
As reported by CBS , the U.S. Department of Education concluded the following:
“The study found that up to seven percent of all middle and high school students were the targets of physical sexual abuse by teachers, coaches and other adults working in the school system.() The data supports that but that there was a lot more female abuse than I imagined. One-third of the reported abuse is female to male.”
In an effort to combat the problem of sexual molestation, it is suggested that parents and school administrators speak frequently with students about sexual predators and how to report questionable incidences and encounters before a crime actually takes place. Parents should also be leery of legal adults who take a special interest in a child .
[Photo Credit: Facebook]