Anna Patton Lamar South Carolina teacher at Darlington County. Images via social media.
Here we go again. A South Carolina high school teacher has been accused of having sex with a 16-year-old student, officials said Monday.
Anna Elizabeth Jeanette Patton, 22, lured is alleged to have lured her teen victim by sending several raunchy messages and lewd photos via text and an array of social media over three months, between Oct. 1, 2019 and Jan. 11, according to arrests warrants from the Darlington County Sheriff’s Office.
She ‘did knowingly communicate with the juvenile victim … through social media and text messaging for the purpose of enticing the victim to engage in sexual activities,’ according to the warrant, cited by SCNow.
The pair allegedly had sex on multiple occasions.
A Darlington County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson said she couldn’t reveal the gender of the alleged victim.
Patton — an English teacher at Lamar High School — was charged with criminal solicitation of a minor, obscenity/disseminating harmful material or exhibiting harmful performance to minors, and sexual battery with a student 16 or 17 years of age with no aggravated force or coercion.
Patton is accused of having sexual intercourse and performing oral sex on multiple occasions, SCNow reports.
She was placed on administrative leave, pending an investigation, Audrey Childers, a spokesperson for the Darlington County School District said in a statement to SCNow.
Patton was released on $7,500 bond at her initial court appearance on Monday and ordered not to contact the victim or the victim’s family and not to return to school grounds, public records show. She is due back in court on May 6.
A 2017 article in The Patriot, the student newspaper at Francis Marion University, where Patton graduated from, describes her as the single mother of a boy.
Unclear is what led to the teacher abusing her position of trust, authority and power to sexually prey on her teen victim.
Anna Patton Lamar High School teacher, Darlington County, South Carolina. Image via social media.