Bad Bad Teacher

(12/06/07 - Initial BBT Report)

Steven D. Mitchell, 33, of Pineville, Arkansas a former agriculture teacher at Melbourne High School has been indicted by a federal grand jury in a superseding indictment on five counts that charges Mitchell with taking minors across state lines, witness tampering and an attempt to travel with minors related to criminal sexual activity.

Mitchell was originally indicted by a federal grand jury in April on 12 counts of sexual misconduct with students. He is accused of taking students across state lines on field trips to engage in sexual acts.

In an appeal of the earlier indictment Mitchell’s attorney argued that the charges involving all the different victims on trips should have been one charge. Prosecutors resubmitted evidence to the grand jury and included all the victims in each trip. As a result of the new indictment Mitchell will have to appear before the judge this month for formal arraignment.

The indictment claims Mitchell engaged in numerous sexually oriented activities with FFA students frequently during trips out of state and over a period of years.

In August 2005 Mitchell pleaded guilty to state charges of two counts of sexual assault involving high school students and was given probation and required to register as a sex offender.

2/08/08 - NOT GUILTY

Yesterday U.S. District Judge Leon Holmes dismissed four of the five charges which Mitchell faced.

This left one charge remaining for the jury to decided and the jury returned a verdict of not guilty.

In August 2005 Mitchell pleaded guilty in Izard County Circuit Court to two felony counts of second-degree assault in connection with the same group of boys and was sentenced to five years’ probation, fined $2,500 and was ordered to register as a Level 3 sex offender.

References:

Mitchell acquitted (2/08/08)

Superseding indictment filed Wednesday (12/06/07)

Background:

Mitchell confined to home (5/07/07)

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 8th, 2008 at 3:20 pm and is filed under Agriculture, Arkansas, High Schools, ME-MV, Not Guilty. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.