Public School Teachers and Sexual Misconduct

Richland High School teacher was sentenced to 40 years for having sex with two students. A teacher in Tupelo got 18 years for a similar crime. But a teacher in Clarksdale, who was accused of giving an eighth-grade student gonorrhea, struck a deal with prosecutors and walked out of court a free man.

More than a dozen teachers in Mississippi have been convicted of sexual crimes since 2000. The sentences handed down vary widely from case to case.

Was justice served?

Gunn was accused of having sex with a 15-year-old girl on three occasions. And despite what the judge in the case called "mounting" evidence and testimony that Gunn gave the teen gonorrhea, Gunn was allowed to strike a deal. He pleaded guilty in 2005 to misdemeanor fornication between a teacher and a student and was sentenced to six months unsupervised probation and a $500 fine.

Gunn was supposed to register as a sex offender within three days of the conviction, but did not until after The Associated Press reported two years later that he had not done so.
District Attorney Laurence Mellen defended Gunn's plea deal, saying it would have been hard to convict Gunn because of his many supporters in Clarksdale, including well-known politicians.

"I work with these juries," Mellen said. "We had a lot of people in the community knowing him. We felt like it ought to be some justice rather than none."

The victim's mother, who asked not to be identified, said Gunn's sentence was too lenient."He took my family through the mud," she said. "It's not justice."

And they don't automatically lose their teaching license.

Lundy, a former Ocean Springs High teacher, has a valid license even though he is currently serving a six-year sentence for touching a child for lustful purposes, according to the state correction system and the Department of Education.

State Superintendent of Education Hank Bounds said there's no way for the central office to know if a teacher like Lundy is convicted of a crime unless the district where they are employed passes the information along.

There are 3 million public school teachers in the U.S. Most of the 31 who lost their Mississippi licenses since 2001 were caught lying on applications or cheating on exams.

"But if it only happens to one child, the percentage is too large," Bounds said. "Not even one time should it be acceptable."

Sex Abuse Findings