Former Bennett teacher gets community service in sex abuse case

There was no jury present for the criminal jury trial on Nov. 16 concerning a former Bennett Middle School teacher and two charges of sex abuse with a minor.

That’s because one wasn’t needed.

The former eighth grade teacher, Kelly Michelle Riddle, agreed to a guilty plea prior to the trial for one count of contributing to the condition of a child. The first charge was changed to this and the second charge of sex abuse with a minor was dismissed.

After a reading of facts and statements of both sides, Riddle, 33, of Salisbury, was sentenced to 18 months at the Wicomico County Detention Center with all but eight days suspended.

However, the number of days that Riddle will serve was further reduced to six days, due to the credit she received for the two days she was incarcerated before posting bail after she was arrested in May. The six days that she will serve won’t be in jail, they will be served in the Warden's Community Service Program, meaning that Riddle’s punishment will come via community service and she won’t spend any nights in a jail cell.

“It’s not really incarceration of any kind,” said Oleg Fastovsky, a private attorney at marylandcriminaldefender.com representing Riddle.

As part of the plea agreement, Riddle will not have contact with the 15-year-old female victim, she will not seek employment as a teacher and she will have mental health counseling. She will also serve three years’ worth of supervised probation and will not be required to register as a sex offender.

From May 2014 to May 2015, Riddle and the victim, a James M. Bennett High student who was 14 years old at the time, exchanged more than 1,700 text messages, according to documents read by Senior Assistant State's Attorney Karen Dean. More than 100 of those text messages included instances of “I love you” being sent from Riddle to the student.

“Every time she said ‘I love you’ there was never any malice intended,” Fastovsky said.

Dean stated to the court that at one point, Riddle sent the victim nine consecutive “I love you” texts without getting a response.

During that yearlong stretch, the student was often in Riddle’s classroom after school and Riddle served as a tutor and mentor to her, according to the facts read by Dean. Before the victim’s phone was confiscated by police after her mother first discovered the texts and reported it to the Wicomico County Sheriff’s Office, the student texted Riddle and told her to delete her messages, court documents state.

The student advised investigators that she did love Riddle, “but not like that,” according to court documents. Dean told the court that the student feels some of the blame and is seeing a therapist.

Other texts between the two included Riddle telling the student, “I can’t imagine not being close to you,” and “I think you dress nice,” and Riddle discussing taking a vacation with the student to Bora Bora, according to documents read by Dean.

Detective Edward J. Fissel of the Salisbury Police Department led the investigation.

Fastovsky stated that Riddle had told the victim’s grandmother about the victim’s struggle with depression. The defense also stated that Riddle said the victim would “self-injure” herself and cut her thighs.

Riddle told Fastovsky that the victim was “like her own child,” and nicknames in text messages like “pumpkin” and “babycakes” were terms of endearment.

“Miss Riddle understands that this was the wrong way to go about this,” Fastovsky said.

According to both the prosecutor and the defense, at no time during this relationship were any inappropriate photos exchanged and there was never any request for physical contact. The victim told investigators the only physical contact she had with Riddle were hugs.

The investigators were unable to uncover anything from Instagram, a mobile social media application that the two communicated through.

Riddle did not make a statement to the court and the only time she spoke was to say “yes ma’am” or “no ma’am” to the judge. Riddle’s mother and brother were present in the court to support her.

Riddle is no longer an employee of any public school in Wicomico County, said Wicomico Public Schools spokeswoman Tracy Sahler. She was a teacher at Bennett Middle for seven years and also coached basketball.

“(Riddle is) very glad to have closure behind all of this,” Fastovsky said. “When someone is facing a charge, the uncertainty of what is happening often times is what weighs on their mind, but now that it is concluded she can move past it, and everything that has been resolved today can hopefully put the family to their satisfaction and to rest and can allow Miss Riddle, who is fairly young, to move on with her life.”

Riddle has a master’s degree in English from Salisbury University, but Fastovsky said that Riddle plans to seek a career in the healthcare field. She had no criminal history prior to this trial.

Fastovsky asked the judge to, at some point, consider giving Riddle probation before judgement so that this charge can be erased from her record because with it there, it would be difficult for her to find employment.

“At the conclusion of the probation we can have a hearing where, at that point in time, if the judge decides to grant the defendant probation before judgement that would remove the conviction from the record and would make the case expungeable," he said.

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