Tufts Alumnae Jennifer Sanchez (LA'01) was charged last week with statutory rape for an incident involving a 15-year-old student at the school where she teaches. Sanchez was reportedly involved in a relationship with the student for nearly four months, even moving into the same building as the boy a month ago.
Sanchez, 23, was in the middle of her first year as an eighth grade Social Studies teacher at Intermediate School 143 in Bronx, New York, this year. She graduated from Tufts as a History major, and was involved in the Association of Latin American Students (ALAS).
Plainclothes policeman from the Bronx Special Victims Unit arrested Sanchez last Tuesday afternoon, where the New York Daily News described her as "visibly upset." If convicted of the third degree rape, a felony charge, she could face up to four years in prison. Third degree rape is charged when the accused is over 21 and the victim is under 17.
Accounts differ on how the relationship between the teacher and the student was discovered. The New York Post reported that the student was threatened by Sanchez's boyfriend, and the student then reported the relationship to his mother who went to the police.
The New York Daily News, however, said that the student told his mother after Sanchez ended the affair.
A source close to the investigation told the Daily News that the teacher and student would meet in the student's apartment while his mother was out and his stepfather was away at work.
"The kid indicated that when they did have a sexual encounter, it would be in his apartment, not hers, when his mother wasn't there," the source said.
Students in her class were shocked by the news of the affair. "She's a real nice-looking lady," a seventh-grader told the Daily News. "But, damn! Sex with a student? That's deep!"
The 15-year-old student involved said that the relationship was voluntary, and that Sanchez did nothing wrong.
"If she loves me and I love her, it's okay, and I love her," he told the Post. "Nobody knew," he said. "It was nobody's business."
Depending on the outcome of the court case against Sanchez, she will probably be reassigned to the Community School District 10 office.
