Ex-teacher sentenced for sexually exploiting student

“You destroyed me,” victim tells former educator, who was given a 19-year prison term after “grooming” her

ALBANY — A former teacher at Notre Dame-bishop Gibbons School in Schenectady who groomed and sexually exploited a 15-year-old who she had taught and mentored — and then blamed it on the victim — was sentenced to 19 years in federal prison in U.S. District Court Thursday.

Kristen Blair Hiltunen, 37, of Amsterdam, who pleaded guilty in August to sexual exploitation of a child, also received 20 years of supervised release when she exits prison.

The defendant listened in court as the victim and her mother delivered victim impact statements to Senior U.S. District Judge Glenn Suddaby. The victim also addressed her abuser.

“You destroyed me,” the teenager told Hiltunen. ‘You ruined what was supposed to be the best years of my life. I trusted you. I defended you. Whenever I heard anything negative about you, I would defend you. I thought you would do the same for me. You are a manipulator and a predator.”

As a teacher, the victim told Hiltunen, she was supposed to protect her and keep her safe.

“I always thought predators were scary men. I never would have ever thought it would be my own teacher,” the victim said.

The victim, now 17, told the judge Hiltunen was her teacher in eighth grade and again when she was a sophomore.

“She showed me that when life was overwhelming at times, she was a person I could confide in. A teacher who I could trust, a kind teacher — well that’s what I thought,” the victim told Suddaby. “Ms. Hiltunen used her power against me.”

The victim said Hiltunen made her feel trapped in a situation that she did not know how to escape. Hiltunen had told her she was the daughter she never had, and manipulated her into believing the abuse was not wrong because she was an adult.

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“She told me, ‘if you slip up, I will end up in jail and I can’t survive jail,’ ” the victim said. “I was and still am a kid. I didn’t know what was going on. At that point I didn’t even know what the word grooming meant and still kind of don’t. I had no idea what sexual abuse was. I had no idea what was happening.”

Prosecutors for U.S. Attorney Carla Freedman said Hiltunen earned not only the trust of the victim but the victim’s mother, who allowed her daughter to stay at Hiltunen’s home. At the same time, the defendant’s husband was stationed out of New York in the military.

Hiltunen used her position as the teenager’s teacher to persuade, induce, entice and coerce the teenager into sexually explicit conduct, Assistant U.S. Attorney Rachel Williams stated in a sentencing memo.

The prosecutor told Suddaby that Hiltunen provided the teenager with alcohol, kissed and sexually abused her. They said Hiltunen exchanged more than 20,000 text messages with the victim, referring to the teenager as her “daughter” and “girlfriend” and asking the victim to call her “Momma.”

Hiltunen and the youth engaged in multiple livestreamed video conversations on Facetime. Prosecutors said the defendant would sexually touch herself and instruct the victim to do the same on camera.

She also asked the victim to keep quiet about the situation.

But Hiltunen, when later questioned by investigators, blamed the teenager she was abusing, calling her “clingy,” prosecutors told the judge.

“In a feeble attempt to justify her actions, the defendant stated she believed (the victim) was missing something in her life and sought out the defendant’s attention,” Williams said.

“The defendant further stated (the victim) ‘was sleeping over and I was afraid honestly, I was afraid even that would take me to prison, and so I was scared she was gonna tell somebody cause … I was just afraid she was gonna tell, so that’s when I just did whatever she wanted … I was like a puppet. She doesn’t know that cause I just went with it, but I would literally give her anything,’ ” the prosecutor added.

“The defendant’s reprehensible conduct, in this case, is gravely serious and warrants the requested sentence in this case,” Williams stated.

In her victim impact statement, the teenager said she had taken her life back.

“Kristen, I hope you live with this for the rest of your life,” she said. “You are the one who will be suffering. You are the one who’s at fault. You did these things to your student. You will forever be guilty.”

Hiltunen’s attorney, Lee Kindlon, had noted that it was his client’s first offense. He asked for the minimum sentence possible.

“This was not an easy day for anyone in the courtroom. The sentencing guideline range recommended 30 years to life, and my client was sentenced to 19 years with credit for time already served,” Kindlon said. “I hope the court and the victim took as sincere my client’s words of remorse and regret and I believe in her chance for rehabilitation.”