Laura Lynn Cross: Ohio Teacher, 37, Had A Baby With A Student She ‘Fostered’
A former high school teacher in Ohio told a court she was impregnated by an underage student she had groomed and fostered for three years as his legal guardian.
People reports Laura Lynn Cross, 37, a former high school teacher, pleaded guilty to three counts of felony sexual battery charges for sexual conduct with the boy between August 1, 2013, and September 6, 2016.
Cross was first arrested in 2017 after the underage student’s father learned that the high school teacher had a baby with his son. Cross was teaching English at Buchtel High School in Akron, Ohio, from 2008 until January 2015 when she quit. Her relationship with the underage student first came on police’s radar in 2012, when the boy was a freshman.
According to Daily Mail, the teacher invited the boy to her place on the pretext of mentoring him. In August 2013, the boy moved into Cross’s Tallmadge home after a court allowed the teacher to share the boy’s custody with his mother. Cross was then married and had four teenage children.
The boy’s father claimed he had conveyed concerns about the relationship his son shared with Cross to the school and Tallmadge Police in 2012, but no charges were filed then. The boy’s mother, who reportedly became suspicious of the relationship but did not seek removal of her son from Cross’s home, approached the police in June 2015.
She allegedly told his mom that she wanted to “mentor” him and was granted partial custody https://t.co/pPfLSgrKON
— New York Post (@nypost) March 28, 2018
Tallmadge police investigated the mother’s complaint, but did not press charges as it reportedly found no evidence. The police further said the boy and Cross were able to explain text messages exchanged between the two which caused the boy’s mother to become suspicious. In December 2015, Cross gave birth.
The teacher was charged and arrested last year after the boy’s father was tipped off about the baby. When the father confronted his son, the boy revealed to his father the nature of the relationship he had with Cross. The man had taped his son’s revelation and approached the police. The father also claimed, according to Mirror, that Cross groomed his son for the sexual relationship.
“First of all, she’s a schoolteacher. To get aroused by a child basically you have to be a sick individual. I was told by the school that she had a ‘hold’ on him and he was not cooperating so basically they can’t do nothing with it. She is a 30-year-old woman with a 14 and 15-year-old boy.”
Cross will be sentenced on May 24 and faces up to 21 years in prison.
