Ex-teacher is sentenced on student sex charges

Woman gets two years in connection with relationship with boy.

SAN DIEGO — A former Crawford High School teacher accused of sexual misconduct with a male student was sentenced Friday to two years in prison.

Toni Nicole Sutton, 38, pleaded guilty last month to sex crime charges — including two counts of unlawful intercourse with a minor.

The former Spanish teacher, who has been ordered to stay away from the victim, will have to register as a sex offender for life.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Judy Taschner said the inappropriate relationship between the defendant and the teen began last summer, when the boy was 15, and lasted several months.

Sutton was escorted from the campus in the El Cerrito community in late January after the teen’s parent called police. The parent had found inappropriate communication between the minor and Sutton, police said.

Detectives questioned Sutton and found evidence that led to her arrest.

Defense lawyer Kerry Armstrong asked the judge to grant probation in the case, but his request was denied. Sutton told a probation officer the inappropriate acts she committed with the student had “only happened once,” which prompted the judge to believe she was “minimizing” her behavior.

Armstrong said he submitted to the court several letters and photocopies of cards written by his client’s supporters, some of them her former students.

Sutton was placed on administrative leave from her job at the time of her arrest. She had been free on bail while her case was pending. She was taken into custody Friday at the end of her sentencing hearing.