Former Ripon High School teacher accused of sexual relationship with 17-year-old student

FOND DU LAC - A former Ripon High School English teacher is accused of having a sexual affair with one of her students, which involved overnight stays at motels, sexting and messages that professed love.

Samantha J. Fitzpatrick of Oshkosh was charged Wednesday in Fond du Lac County Circuit Court with sexual assault of a student by school staff, child enticement, exposing a child to harmful material and obstructing an officer.

Ripon police found evidence on Fitzpatrick's phone of 67 phone calls to the student, as well as Facebook messages that included sexually graphic messages, sexual role-playing and acknowledged feelings of love between them. There was also an exchange of sexually explicit photos and the description of performing sexual acts on each other, court records state.

The 28-year-old faces more than 35 years in prison if convicted of all charges — three of which are felonies.

Judge Dale English ordered Fitzpatrick pay a $1,000 cash bond, have no unsupervised visits with males under 18 and maintain sobriety.

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Ripon Area School District superintendent Mary Whitrock sent out a statement Wednesday informing parents of the criminal charges. She also included a message the district had sent out to the community back in May that stated: "The district does not typically comment on personal matters, however under the circumstances, we think it's important to address some of the inaccurate information and rumors about the recent resignation of Samantha Fitzpatrick from district employment."

Fitzpatrick resigned on May 3 after school administrators addressed concerns about her unreliable attendance, Whitrock said. Rumors about the teacher's dismissal had been circulating for awhile through the community.

The district launched an investigation in December 2016 over allegations of improper conduct by Fitzpatrick with a student and subsequently notified Ripon police.

Another teacher at Ripon High School reported noticing a certain male student was "hanging around a lot in Fitzpatrick's classroom," court records state, and that the student sat next to the teacher's desk and the two talked during instruction time when she should have been teaching.

Fitzpatrick and the student would often be missing from school on the same day, other teachers reported. A student at the school told investigators the 17-year-old told him that Fitzpatrick had taken him for an overnight stay at Comfort Inn and Suites in Ripon and that Fitzpatrick was impaired from alcohol at the time and the student may have been using marijuana.

More reports surfaced when an instructor said in late October a student told her the 17-year-old had gone to a party at a hotel in Oshkosh and told someone that he had arrived late because "he was at Fitzpatrick's and just had sex with her."

When questioned, Fitzpatrick said that she had seen the 17-year-old student downtown and he had been smoking marijuana so she put him up in a hotel room for the night because she didn't know what to do with him.

She said she brought him into her own room for awhile, but then he did not stay, court records say.

Both Fitzpatrick and the student have denied any physical relationship or inappropriate conduct.

In September a friend of Fitzpatrick's told police that Fitzpatrick professed to having marital problems and admitted to having an affair with a male who was turning 18 years old soon.

The alleged romance occurred between December and May.

Whitrock said that during the initial investigation in December 2016 of alleged improper conduct, both the school district and Ripon police concluded there was insufficient evidence to open a police investigation.

New information received in May prompted the investigation, police say.

Fitzpatrick's next court appearance is scheduled for Jan 5.