Brooke Rosendale, a fifth grade intervention specialist and volleyball and basketball coach in Ohio, was been sentenced to three years in jail.
The ruling came down on Wednesday, after Rosendale pleaded guilty to a sexual relationship with a 13-year old female student.
According to an arrest report (obtained by People Magazine), the Riverdale School employee engaged in sexual contact with the unnamed teenager in January and February of last year.
The incidents did not happen on school grounds, the document states.
Based on this same report, Rosendale (who was convicted on a charge of third-degree felony count of sexual battery) was not the teacher of the girl with whom she slept.
Instead, the two met via the school’s extracurricular programs.
Rosendale, who resigned her position one months after this inappropriate relationship ended, must now register as a Tier 3 sex offender going forward.
She also must pay $ 225 in restitution to the family of her former student.
In court, Rosendale’s attorney, Peter Halleck, said his client has accepted responsibility for her actions and has expressed remorse to him on multiple occasions.
However, Hancock County Common Pleas Judge Reginald Routson, the judge who oversaw the case, came across as skeptical that Rosendale truly understood her actions.
“You stepped across a line, a taboo that cannot be violated,” Routson said, according to court records.
He added:
“There cannot be any sort of relationships between teachers and students and you betrayed a very important trust.”
Rosendale apologized Wednesday to the parents of the student, who appeared in court but did not wish to make a statement in public.
“I want to apologize to the family,” she said. “I know I hurt them and I apologize.”
Rosendale got engaged in July of 2016 and was scheduled to get married on November 4, 2017, per a section on TheKnot.com.
It’s unclear at this time whether or not Rosendale went through with the wedding.
In March of 2017, the teenager’s parents reported these sexual incidents to the school district.
After the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office launched a criminal investigation, Rosendale resigned from her position.
She has also relinquished her teaching certificate.
