Teacher Smackdown

UPDATE to Teacher Elizabeth Logan Charged with Theft and Computer Crime for Stealing Student’s Coat, Selling it on eBay

In Hillsboro, Oregon, teacher Elizabeth Lucinda Logan, 42, was sentenced to 18 months of probation for stealing a student’s coat and selling it on eBay. She was found guilty of attempted first-degree theft, computer crime, and third-degree theft.

Judge Hernandez lectured Logan and said that he expected more from her because she was a teacher. He said that she should have known better.

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In Grand Junction, Colorado, teacher Gretchen Blackford confessed to police that she stole at least $15,000 from the parent-teacher organization. She was the president of the Parent Teacher Council at Thunder Mountain Elementary School. Blackford teaches fifth grade at Rocky Mountain Elementary in Clifton, Colorado.

She said she used the money for her personal use. However, police say that it may take up to two months to determine how much money Blackford stole and when. She will not be arrested until the investigation is complete.

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Kind of a quiet week at Teacher Smackdown. Maybe people are trying to be extra good for Santa…well everyone but these two.

John Erickson
In Alta, California, John Erickson, a retired teacher who works as a teacher’s aide for an hour a day, was arrested on suspicion of committing lewd acts with a child. He worked at Alta Dutch Flat School and exposed himself to one child.

Placer County sheriffs released Erickson bail. Erickson no longer works at the school and parents were notified of the arrest.

Erickson also owns a Christmas tree farm located near the school.

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Poor New Orleans is getting poorer. Sixth grade teacher Gabriel C. Hood, 28, was arrested on charges that he stole money from a student community service group, the Tchefuncte Middle School Builder’s Club. The club is cosponsored by the Kiwanis and gets middle school students to participate in community service projects to help other kids, seniors, the disabled, and the poor.

Hood is charged with taking over $1,100 from student dues and fundraisers and buying a $450 camera with the club’s money. It is tempting to call him Robin Hood, but that legendary figure gave to the poor and did not steal from them. Maybe we should call him “Robbing the ‘hood” instead.

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While this is a crazy story, I would prefer more of these tales rather than stories about teachers sexually molesting kids or bringing guns to school.

In Hillsboro, Oregon, Elizabeth Lucinda Logan, 42, a former teacher at Jackson Elementary school, was charged with first-degree theft by selling, second-degree theft and computer crime after she was accused of stealing a student’s coat and trying to sell it on eBay.

(Geez, they must not pay teachers much in Oregon if they are stealing items and putting them up on online auctions.)

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Here at Teacher Smackdown, I like finding stories about teachers stealing. It certainly beats teachers having affairs with their teenage students, or feeling up kindergarteners…sigh.

In Cumberland, Maryland, Carmen Belen Harden, 35, was charged with embezzlement and theft. She was arrested at her home on a warrant and posted a $20,000 bond later that day.

The investigation began in June when the county board of education notified the Cumberland Police Department that a teacher was embezzling funds.

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In Cortland New York, Allendale Columbia elementary school teacher Michael Bohn, 41, pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery, second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, third-degree grand larceny, and endangering the welfare of a child. Two counts of first-degree robbery for robbing a bank with a loaded gun last February were dropped in exchange for his plea.

Bohn will be serving between five and 12 1/2 years in state prison for using a .44-magnum handgun to rob $16,000 in cash from a bank. A witness outside the bank called 911 and police caught him as he left the bank.

His arrest shocked parents since he received an award for teaching excellence back in 2002. Bohn taught history and math to sixth graders and geography to seventh graders.

Sounds like he should have been teaching, thou shall not steal, too. Or does this have to do with teachers being paid so little?

Michael Bohn, bank robbery, criminal possession of a weapon, grand larceny, endangering the welfare of a child, Allendale Columbia

Here’s a scam. You’re a principal and the school budget gives you money for student pictures. Needing a little extra pocket change, you ask parents to send in money for pictures and then steal the cash.

Luckily, this scammer got caught.

Seems that the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office is investigating Wilson Elementary School principal Michael Hailey. Not only is he accused of stealing picture money, but he was indicted on stealing $14,298 from students for field trips that were already paid for by the district.

His assistant, Patricia Johnson, is also charged in the crime as are Juanita Worthy, a principal at Wiggins Elementary School, and her daughter Keah Worthy, a former teacher at Wilson. Hailey and Johnson are also accused of trying to take $25,000 worth of pay vouchers for meetings that were never held.

Wow a principals-teachers crime ring operating in two different schools. What next, a PTO pot dealing ring?

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principals stealing money, teachers stealing money, stealing from kids

In Phillipsburg, New Jersey, social studies teacher Jennifer A. Ostile, 30, was arrested for stealing a dose of a student’s prescription painkiller from the nurse’s office at Phillipsburg High School.

Two school nurses noticed that a student’s bottle of Endocet was four pills short during a routine daily inventory of student medications. (Endocet is similar to Percocet.)

Nurses told police Ostile came to their office to get a bottle of a gel for her neck. One of the nurses heard a filing cabinet open in the room Ostile was in. When she looked in the office, she saw Ostile drop a prescription bottle to the floor. When the nurses went to the filing cabinet, they found another pill missing from the student’s Endocet bottle.

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How nice to find a story where a teacher isn’t having sex with his or her students or giving them drugs. Instead he’s “only” stealing money from them.

In Newport, Tenn. Reece Thornton, 55, a GED teacher at Cocke County High School was caught stealing money during a basketball game. Acting on a tip, the school’s resource officer set up the video camera above the ticket sale area. The video clearly shows Thornton stuffing his pockets with money.

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