NEW BRAUNFELS – A former special education inclusion support teacher has pleaded guilty to sexual assault of a child and improper relationship between an educator and student charges after admitting to having sex with a student in a class closet.
Emily Anderson, 35, was arrested and charged with sexual assault of a child, a second-degree felony, in August 2021. She was arrested a second time in December 2021 and charged with improper relationship between an educator and a student.
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A previous KSAT report states that Anderson engaged in a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old male student at Canyon High School in New Braunfels.
The New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung reported that Anderson admitted to having sex with the victim in a biology classroom closet.
Anderson will now be required to register as a sex offender as part of her plea agreement. She’s also required to serve a total of 60 days in jail over the course of the next 10 years, during which she’ll also be on probation.
Anderson has been ordered to pay a $2,000 fine and complete 500 hours of community service in addition to receiving a lifetime protective order prohibiting her from contacting the victim.
The Herald-Zeitung reported that the judge in the case allowed the victim’s mother to address Anderson following her guilty plea.
According to the paper, the victim’s mother talked about “the pain she feels seeing her son suffer from depression and anxiety. She said that an ‘ideal punishment’ would be for Anderson to see her own children endure that pain.”
The mother originally called New Braunfels police after she found sexually explicit texts on her son’s cellphone, which were confirmed to be from Anderson.
The arrest affidavit from Anderson’s first arrest in August 2021 noted that the texts contained details of a sexual encounter between Anderson and the victim, which occurred in May of that year.
“When I saw those messages — when I went through that phone, my (instinct) was to go and get you out of that school and deal with you myself,” the mother said in court, according to the Herald-Zeitung.
Anderson was placed on leave after her first arrest and Canyon High School Principal Dustin Davisson sent a letter to parents saying, “I know that it can be quite disturbing to learn that one of our teachers was charged with a crime such as this.”