Teacher acquitted of charges
Teen had claimed instructor had inappropriate contact with her
A Bernalillo County jury on Wednesday acquitted a former middle school teacher after a two-day trial on charges that he inappropriately touched a teen student three times in the spring of 2014.
Kenneth Jehle faced three counts of criminal sexual contact of a minor, and the jury unanimously agreed that he was not guilty of each of those charges.
According to prosecutors, on separate occasions Jehle allegedly pushed a cellphone into the teen’s back pocket, slapped her on the buttocks while play fighting and touched her genitals while placing a tube of lip gloss on her lap.
Jehle testified and denied any inappropriate conduct. He said he touched the girl on the shoulder during the shadowboxing incident, and that he simply dropped the tube of lip gloss onto the teen’s folded arms. He said he had no memory of the event involving a cellphone.
Jehle’s defense attorney Stephen Lane used his closing argument Wednesday to point out inconsistencies in the teen’s story. But prosecutor Joshua Rubin argued that at its center, the girl’s story remained the same.
“That her seventh-grade teacher touched her,” he said, “that’s been consistent.”
Jehle was scheduled to go to trial at the end of this month on charges that he sexually abused a female relative. A spokesman for the District Attorney’s Office would not say whether the outcome of this trial will have any effect on the remaining charges.
Albuquerque Public Schools paid $750,000 to settle a lawsuit involving these and other allegations of Jehle’s unusual and inappropriate classroom conduct.
Both Jehle and his attorney declined to comment on the verdict.
The girl’s mother said Wednesday afternoon that she felt the justice system failed her daughter. But she said she was proud of her for reporting behavior that made her feel unsafe and uncomfortable.
“She did an amazing thing: She spoke out,” she said. “She took it serious. I took it serious. It was taken serious up to this point.”