A former Columbus City Schools substitute teacher has been convicted of four felony counts of disseminating matter harmful to juveniles and found not guilty of a fifth count. Sheila Kearns had told investigators she didn't watch the movie "The ABCs of Death" before showing it to five periods of a Spanish-language class at East High School.

A Franklin County jury wasn�t convinced that a former substitute teacher knew about the graphic sex and violence in The ABCs of Death when she showed the movie to a morning class at Columbus� East High School.

But the jurors were certain that she committed a crime by showing it to four more classes that same day.

The jury convicted Sheila Kearns yesterday of four counts of disseminating matter harmful to juveniles and acquitted her of one count.

Common Pleas Judge Charles Schneider scheduled sentencing for March 4. The maximum penalty for each felony count is one year in prison and a $2,500 fine, but probation is the presumed penalty for the low-level felony.

Kearns spoke just three words outside the courtroom when asked for a reaction to the verdict.

�God is good,� she said.

Her attorney, Geoffrey Oglesby, said she will appeal.

Kearns, 58, of Miller Avenue on the South Side, had told investigators that she didn�t watch the movie in advance or while showing it during five Spanish classes at the high school on April 11, 2013.

But one student testified during Kearns� trial that the teacher did watch portions of the movie. The student, who was 17 at the time, called the movie �disturbing� and said students �were going crazy� while watching it.

Kearns� defense focused on her claims that she was unaware of the movie�s content. Under the law, a person guilty of disseminating matter harmful to juveniles must do so �with knowledge of its character or content.�

After the jurors were excused yesterday, the jury foreman told The Dispatch that the two-hour deliberation focused primarily on the issue of Kearns� knowledge of the content.

Though the state didn�t prove Kearns was aware of the content when she played it during her first class of the day, the jury determined that she gained sufficient knowledge during that first viewing of the movie, Riley Gilson said.

That�s why the jury acquitted her of the first count and convicted her of the other four, the foreman said.

The jury of nine men and three women watched the movie on Tuesday. They had to decide whether the film was harmful to juveniles and, if so, whether it meets the definition of obscene under Ohio law.

Gilson, 22, of Hilliard, said the jurors �were unanimous right off the bat� that the film met both standards. He said the movie was difficult for jurors to watch.

�For anybody, I think it would be a challenging video,� he said. �Nobody enjoyed it.�

Assistant County Prosecutor Kacey Chappelear had told jurors in closing arguments on Wednesday that the name of the movie was reason enough for Kearns to explore the content before showing it to juveniles.

�Willful ignorance is not a defense,� she said.

An assistant principal, who was alerted that the movie was being shown, went to the classroom and confiscated the DVD after seeing what was on the screen.

Lolita Perryman, a detective from the Columbus Police Division�s exploited-children�s unit, testified on Wednesday that Kearns seemed unconcerned when Perryman described some of the movie�s content to her.

�She told me, �Those kids see worse than that at home,�� Perryman said.

The ABCs of Death consists of 26 �chapters,� one for each letter of the alphabet and each depicting some form of a grisly death. For example, �D Is for Dogfight.�

Perryman said her discussion with Kearns focused on �L Is for Libido,� which depicts several rounds of a masturbation contest in which each loser is impaled on a spike that rises from beneath his chair and the winner ultimately is killed with a chain saw.

Tim League, one of the producers of The ABCs of Death, talked about the movie last night from his home in Austin, Texas. He said that when he first heard about the trial, he thought it was a �joke story� because he couldn�t believe the movie would be shown to a high-school class.

�I agree with the prevailing sentiment that this is absolutely inappropriate for a substitute teacher to show anyone under the age of 17,� League said. �It�s not a movie for children.�

Kearns, who did not testify, wrote a statement for school officials in which she said she chose the movie because some of the segments are in Spanish. Testimony established that she did not speak Spanish. Despite that, she was hired as a long-term sub for the Spanish class on Feb. 14, 2013, district spokesman Jeff Warner said yesterday. State law does not require special subject certification for long-term subs, he said.

�We were not able to find anyone who could teach the language at that time,� Warner said. �We have very, very few substitutes who are Spanish or foreign-language specialists. There just aren�t many of them out there.� Kearns was terminated by the district in June 2013.

Oglesby told the jury in his closing argument that the movie was �reprehensible� and that no one �who is not pleading insanity� would knowingly expose high-school students to it.

�There�s no way you would show that movie with knowledge of its content,� he said. �I can�t even make up a reason. It�s clear that she didn�t know.�

Dispatch Reporter Bill Bush contributed to this story.

jfutty@dispatch.com

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