Bad Teachers: Arkansas Edition

0:20 Hey everyone, and welcome back to Exposed Scandalous Files in the Elite. I'm your host, Jim Chapman, and today I am bringing you the first episode in the Bad Teachers state specific series. With this series, I'm going to cover one state every week, and I'm going to give you several stories of bad teachers committing crimes with students. And it's an epidemic, y'all. There seemingly no end in sight to this now. When I announce this series a few episodes ago, I had a lot of responses, which thank you. I truly appreciate it. I love all of you for taking the time and making that extra effort. Y'all freaking rock now. With bad Teachers, typically I cover female teachers, So keep that in mind because there's a reason I do that. There are thousands of them out there, and they're the ones getting no jail time or very little jail time in almost all cases, because when it's a female teacher and a male student, there is a big discrepancy from their male counterparts. It's just not looked at the same way the males. They average currently eight to ten years in prison or longer when they're caught doing shit like this, the females average between one and two.

1:45 That's a current stat, y'all. So it's the female teachers that really need the exposure off of my show, and I'm going to give them all they want and then some. Now, as I said today, it's all about Arkansas, and the first teacher that we're going to cover in Bad Teachers Arkansas edition is Stephanie Almond, who is a former eleventh grade teacher at Mammel High School in Mamel, Arkansas, who at the age of twenty eight, was accused of having a sexual relationship with a seventeen year old student. So with this one, there's very little in the background that I could find in the way of Stephanie. I do know she was an eleventh grade English teacher at Mameil High and she was admired by her peers for her dedication.

2:41 She was divorced, and she was mother to a young son. So I'm going to take you back to twenty twenty one in students with notice miss Almond's favoritism toward a particular seventeen year old boy, and we're going to call him Victim one to protect his identity. And Victim one was a typical team, athletic, impressionable, and obviously in this case, a target for the teacher. Now, Arkansas, like many states, they have strict laws against teacher student relationships. And even though the age of consent is sixteen and this boy was seventeen, when there's a power imbalance, like a teacher over a student or a police officer over a seventeen year old kid, it's a felony regardless, and that's important.

3:32 And Almond knew this. She was a teacher that was trained on ethics in boundaries, yet she chose to cross that line. And it's important to note the education in Arkansas. It's not glamorous when you go into education. You're not going into it to be a millionaire, right, But teachers like Almond, they did hold an elite status in their community, the gatekeepers. Teachers may not be rock stars, but they are in a lot of ways because the role models to these kids and often confidance to these kids. And with her status as a teacher, you can imagine how much this case would rock the community. So on May of twenty twenty one, fellow students start spotting red flags.

4:25 They noticed that Almond and victim number one they were spending a lot of time together alone inside of the classroom. So one student reports this odd behavior to school officials. They start investigating, and eventually it gets escalated to police. So police in turn, they interview students at that school, and those students will provide details inside a look inside, if you will, into that relationship. And one of the things they would say was Almond had kind of a secret drop point for letters that she would exchange with victim number one. She would use a trash can and she would drop notes in that trash can, and then victim number one will go to the trash can and pick those notes up, pull them out of the trash and read them. Now, one student, after being asked by Stephanie the teacher to respond to dating app requests. Now, before I go any further, yeah, you just heard me, right.

5:30 This teacher goes to a student and says, I'm on a dating app and I'm getting too many requests. I guess because she thought she was hot, and I need you to go through here and just respond to these for me. You're asking a student to do that. Really, it's all needs to be said. But she did, in fact ask this student to respond to these dating app requests, and according to the student, he found a lot of flirty texts between her and the victim. Exchange, Almond asked the victim if he wanted to quote break up, and he replied, quote, couldn't do it anymore. That was just some strange texts back and forth that may raise a red flag. And as police dug further, they found out a student recorded Almond admitting that lines got a little blurry between her and the victim when she was asked by the student about her relationship with the victim. Well, I guess line's got kind of blurred. Police then interviewed the victim, and of course, he confessed to everything. He said.

6:37 He visited Almond's little Rock home twice, once for a quote study session that turned sexual and again for more the same, and he said they kissed a lot at school, and she even flashed a nude photo of herself while he was sitting in his desk that she had on her phone during class time. Other students could see that. And this wasn't a one off, y'all. It was grooming one oh one. The school district, they acted fast. They placed Almond on administrative leave, and they launched an internal investigation, but the damage at this point was done. Of course, when parents heard about this, they were furious. They were demanding answers. How did this slip through the cracks? Now, this is a district that served thousands of people, So was this an isolated incident or did we have a major problem here? And as the investigation kind of deepened, more details would emerge. Almand's personal life was unrivaling. She had a messy divorce and then a custody battle over her son, and so some people were thinking, well, maybe stress pushed her over the edge and caused her to have sex with this student, and or was this a pattern where this was one of many students they didn't know.

7:59 Sources close to the case hinted at prior rumors with students, but nothing was ever substantiated. Now, by June of twenty twenty one, the story hits the local news. Social media would explode, Facebook post It was pretty much the talk of Arkansas at this point. Then, on July first of twenty twenty one, Little Rock police arrested Almond on first three sexual assault charges, which is a class A felony carrying up to thirty years in prison. In the state of Arkansas. She pleaded not guilty, She posted bond, and then the legal bs starts right coordinates dragged on for nearly two years. Now, this was remember the date here.

8:46 She was arrested in twenty twenty one, and they had COVID backlogs from prior to that. So her case just got kind of put in line. And you have to fast forward all the way to August of twenty twenty three, when at a bench trial in Pulaski County Circuit Court before Judge Leon Johnson, that prosecutors drop one count and downgraded the charge to third degree sexual assault plea bargan still a felony, but a Class D felon. Now, why the plea deal. Insiders say that they wanted to spare the victim of what was going to be considered a girling testimony, and they also allegedly considered Almond's clean record, Plus she had a custody battle going on. Maybe some people felt sorry for her. So Almond takes that plea deal and she pleaded guilty, and what happens. What do you think she got? Well, she gets a whopping six years perbation. That's it. A fifteen hundred dollars fine and probably the worst thing that happened to her a lifetime sex offender registration. But she got no prison time. Zero.

9:56 She was ordered to have no contact with the victim and undergo counseling. And that's a great example of why I even do this Bad Teacher series. No jail time, basically a slap on the rest. So let's go to our second bad teacher for today, and that is Leanne Ruthan Queen. Now, she was an Arkansas educator who went from a small town pe teacher to a convicted sex offender. I'm going to cover the grooming, the assaults, and the arrest that absolutely shocked Gentry, Arkansas in the time that she was arrested. Some things on Lea ruth and Queen.

10:42 She was born in the early nineteen eighties, so that made her forty three years old when all this shit went down in twenty twenty two. She was raised in the rural Ozarks and she settled in Westville, Oklahoma, which is just across the Arkansas border. Professional life was firmly planted in Gentry, Arkansas. Now. Gentry is a quiet little town about thirty five hundred people in Benton County, Arkansas, home of Walmart. Right, Gentry is the kind of place where everyone knows everyone in the schools are pretty much the heartbeat of that community. Now. As a pe teacher at Gentry Intermediate School, she coached young minds and bodies, shaped the next generation, if you will. She was an approachable type of teacher that a lot of kids looked up to. But beneath that facade of this just great approachable teacher was a woman holding some very dark secrets.

11:46 For a long time now, she was married, once divorced, in by all accounts, living a double life. Now. Teachers like Queen represent a subtle power structure in small towns. Educators aren't just teachers, y'all. They're community leaders. They're even surrogate parents in a lot of cases. Think about it. They hold a lot of power. They hold power over grades, they hold power over a child's future. And just like the case I discussed just a few minutes ago, it's important to remember Arkansas law recognizes the imbalance, making a teacher student sexual contact a felony no matter the age, if the student is under twenty one and enrolled in school. Now, some of the things to note as it relates to Queen. First, she was an extremely respected teacher. As a matter of fact, in twenty nineteen, she gets recognized for her teaching skills by being named Benton County's Teacher of the Year in twenty nineteen, and in twenty twenty two, after moving to another county, she is recognized as Gentry Counties Teacher of the Year. That's a big deal. But the story that I'm about to tell you about goes back over a decade.

13:08 As a matter of fact, it goes back to twenty ten, when she's in her late twenties. And one thing when I was researching this case, in researching Leah Queen was she had kind of a transformation in her life. I don't know what kind of role it played in this case, but she was a larger woman back in two thousand and ten, two thousand and nine, two thousand and eight, and she went through a dramatic weight loss. And after her weight loss, talk about a gorgeous woman, and you know the pictures that I've seen that are somewhat recent, very beautiful lady. But back in those days, she apparently struggled with her weight and she was very open about this.

13:55 Very proud of the weight she had lost because she had a very active Twitter page. I'm gonna upload a lot of before and after pictures of this particular teacher on the Patreon, but I don't know if it played a role, So let's get back to it. She was in her late twenties at this point, twenty ten, and she was teaching at what was then an intermediate school. And that's when she crossed paths with a seventeen year old high school boy. Let's call him Alex to kind of shield his identity. And Alex was athletic, impressionable, He's navigating life right as a as a young kid in Queen, she would see this allegedly as an opportunity. And I'm not unpack how this friendship began, but first I want you to consider the context. Arkansas in twenty ten was grappling with similar teacher scandals nationwide. Yet small towns, unlike bigger towns, they can often sweep this these type of things under the rug, and they often did, and no one suspected Queen until twenty twenty two when the past came roaring back. So twelve years later now, according to Core documents, the grooming aspect of this relationship started at a basketball game in early twenty ten. Queen, as a pee coach, was there in her official capacity as a coach, and Alex was a high school junior, and he apparently

15:26 caught her eye in what started out as casual chitchad would evolve. By March of twenty ten. They were connected on social media Facebook, likely back when that was the go to platform. Messages would fly back and forth, innocent at first, and then they started getting a lot more flirty. Now Queen, obviously the adult in authority at that point, should have shut it down, but instead she escalates this inappropriate conversation and they began hanging out outside of school. They would meet up with each other, they would go on drives together, and it would start blurring those teacher student boundaries. Now, Alex was still seventeen, still a kid in the eyes of the law. For these purposes, Queen, she was over a decade older at this time, obviously using her position to build trust with this kid, and witness would later describe disturbing behavior. They would say that Queen doated on him, that she would treat him like a peer rather than her student, and her ex husband would even coroborate seeing them together in ways that, let's just say, raise some red flags. And that's classic manipulation. Right.

16:52 Teachers have access, they have influence, and they use this cloak of respectability to garner trust with these students and then commit egregious acts. Now is the summer of twenty ten approach, with Alex being a junior and then moving into his senior year, the relationship turned physical. Now, keep in mind, in twenty ten, social media was relatively new and the safeguards that exist today, which there were none back then, at least now there are some. But back then it was like the wild West. This was a brand new way for these bad actors who prayed on students to communicate with their victims. And at this time, Miss Queen was thirty one years old. So during the summer of twenty ten, Queen allegedly engaged in multiple acts of sexual contact with Alex locations. If you're curious about that, how about her office at school, how about her office bathroom, just to name a few. And the charges specify what's done as deviate sexual activity, which is Arkansas legalese for non intercourse sexual acts, and Alex would later detail how Queen initiated that contact. He said he had been on a camping trip where she kissed him. He said they would have sex in her office bathroom as well as

18:22 in her classroom. And get this, her ex husband actually caught her in the student in bed together. Alex's parents would notice oddities, but back then they didn't piece it all together until Alex came forward in twenty twenty two. And why did they not piece it together? I mean, who would believe your teacher was screwing your son? Right? A former colleague witnessed Queen's obsessive behavior toward Alex, and that was the one that said she constantly dat it on him and would treat him as a peer instead of a student. So, after this kid comes out in twenty twenty two with this story, police go to speak to Queen, but she refuses to speak to them, probably the smart thing considering the circumstances. But regardless of that, Queen was arrested after an investigation on September fifteenth of twenty twenty two by the Gentry Police Department. Now, she was initially held at the Benton County Jail without bond on the sexual assault charge. However, bomb was later set at fifty thousand dollars and she bonds out of jail.

19:32 That's on September seventeenth of twenty twenty two. Of course, she gets placed on lead by the school she was teaching at. And you may wonder, wait a minute, this is twelve years later when the victim came forward. How can she get arrested? And the answer is, there's no statue of limitations on sexual assault when it involves miners in the state of Arkansas. Now, the case proceeds to the Benton County Circuit cour and the proceedings lasted from Queen's arrest in September of twenty twenty two until her plea in July of twenty twenty three, a period of about ten months, so relatively quick when you're talking about cases like this. Now, no trial occurred because of a plea deal. So on July twelfth of twenty twenty three, Queen pleaded guilty to first degree sexual assault, and as part of the plea agreement, the prosecutor recommended and the court imposed the following sentence get Ready six years of probation, approximately two months in jail. Mandatory registration is a sex offender, and she was prohibited from ever being a teacher again in the future. That's it essentially two months in jail.

20:48 The rest was all probation. So following her conviction, Queen is no longer employed in education. Obviously, she has to register as a sex offender for the rest of her life. As of January of twenty twenty six when I'm recording this, there's no report of additional charges, violations of probation, or appeals. Seems like she's keeping her nose clean. In this case drew a lot of local attention in Arkansas, but it did not gain widespread national coverage beyond what was local in that area of Arkansas until now because I just blasted her and I exposed her. So there you have that, another teacher getting pretty much, you know, no jail time sixty days. Come on, let's get into the third and final bad teacher for this episode covering Arkansas's bad Teachers, and let's discuss cute Little Heather Hair. And I say cute Little Heather Hair because she is she is a cutie.

21:50 She is thirty two, she looks like she's about twenty two. I'm going to upload her pictures obviously to the Patreon, but she was a two year old teacher who taught home economics at Bryant's High School in Bryant, Arkansas, when she was arrested in twenty twenty three for having inappropriate relationships with two underage students, including having sex with one student twenty to thirty times during the twenty one twenty two school year. Now, as far as her background, not much as available. What I did discover is that she lived in Conway, Arkansas. She was married at the time, and she had children. And it's interesting to just prior to being arrested for what I'm about to break down for you, she had what I would call a viral moment, a viral incident in her life when she taped a farewell message to her class on the onset of the COVID school shutdowns, plead were students that she's going to miss them and all this stuff. She cried in it.

22:59 It was something else. It actually led to an appearance on Good Morning America in twenty twenty. So I'm gonna bring you through the timeline of everything that occurred. And in August of twenty twenty one, Heather Hair starts the school year at Bryant High and that's where she meets victim one. He's a senior and she meets him on the very first day of school, and right off the bat she allegedly initiated one on one counseling sessions. She provides him with her personal phone number, and from there she starts communicating with him, first ever text, then through Snapchat and Instagram. Then that same month August of twenty twenty one, Hair engaged in sex with this student twenty to thirty times through April of twenty twenty two. Now, according to the affidavit, the communication escalated early on due to Heather telling the victim one day, Okay, they're communicating over Snapchat and she says, I had a dream of us having sex, and y'all, that is about as classic a grooming technique as you can ever have in life.

24:15 Why did she do that? Well, it's a test. She wants to see what the reaction is going to be. If a student freaks out and says, hey, that's really inappropriate for you to tell me that, you know, I'm offended, reacts in sort of a negative manner, she can stop it right there and no harm, no foul, He's likely never going to report that to somebody, and she can say, okay, well he's not down with it. But if the student doesn't freak out the teacher in this case Hair, she's going to see that as a green light to push it further and push it further, And that's just what happened. Now after that instance, they would end up having sex an average of two times per month until they stopped in April of twenty twenty two, and they would have sex at locations including Hair's car multiple times, her home multiple times. And remember this chick is married and has kids, and even her classroom in the school parking lots. Now, a key incident took place on April twenty first through the twenty fourth of twenty twenty two, and during a school field trip to DC where Hair was a chaperone, she would have sex with victim Ie in her hotel room and this would set the stage for additional charges later on. So not much is out there in the public as to why this relationship ended. If any of

25:47 you are familiar with the case and you have more information on this, please message me. But this guy was a seventeen year old senior, so I assume he graduated, but on March thirtieth of twenty twenty he goes back to the school and he reports everything that occurred when he was in school to the Bryant High School authorities and police get involved and an investigation follows, and on April fourteenth of twenty twenty three, a warrant for the arrest of Heather Hare is issued and she turns herself in to police. And Heather Hair had a major problem because that field trip she went on to Washington, d c.

26:32 To serve as a chaperone and ended up having sex with this kid. She crossed state lines with this kid, which makes her case open. Not only do state charges, but the federal charges, and the FBI gets involved when you have federal charges, and the Feds don't look at these instances with as much leniency as state courts do when it involves email teachers. So while she's waiting to be indicted, another victim comes forward alleging Hair had sex with him as well. Now on the second victim, the trail literally ends there for me. I can't find anything else on it, which is frustrating because it's like the local news in the area got tired of reporting it, nothing else comes out on this second victim would love it if somebody out there knows more information on that.

27:29 But she does eventually get indicted by the FEDS for traveling across state lines to engage in sex with a minor in coercion, and that incident do primarily the fact the Feds don't play they cost her dearly when in May of twenty twenty four, she gets sentenced to thirteen years in federal prison. Now, as far as state charges, when she was sentenced for that, and I would imagine the amount of times she had sex with this guy twenty to thirty times in the state of Arkansas, I would also imagine the federal sentence played a role in what the state sentenced her too, because I was surprised and happy to see that the State of Arkansas actually gave out a sentence that fit the crime, and they sentenced her to twenty years in state prison. Now, she was ordered to serve the sentences concurrently, so that when you have concurrent sentences, that means you serve them together, and the longest sentence wins essentially, so when it's all sudden done, she gets twenty years in prison she'll serve the first thirteen years in federal prison and then upon her release, she will serve seven more years in the State of Arkansas Department of Corrections. Finally, we had at least one case today out of the state of Arkansas that it seems like the punishment fit the crime. She won't be getting out of prison for quite a while.

28:58 And there you have it. Three teachers from Arkansas. Stephanie Almond six years probation, Lee Everything, Queen Gentry Arkansas six years probation, and Heather hair Brian Arkansas twenty years in present. Talk about a discrepancy there they all need twenty years now. I'll be bringing you another state specific episode of Bad Teachers next week, and I think we'll be going to Texas for that one. I just picked it. Let's go to Texas next week on Bad Teachers. Thank you so much for listening. I got some extras to upload on the Patreon obviously for these cases I covered today, So Patreon and supporters check those out. And if you want to be a supporter, get all these extras that we give you on exposed scandalous files of the elite. You can just go to Patreon dot com slash exposed podcast files.

29:52 Please rate the show wherever you're listening. If it allows you to put a comment in there. You can put just a one word comment and rates five stars. It really helps to get these episodes out there into the world. Until next time for exposed scandalous files of the elite, I'm your host, Jim Chapman. Much love,