A Utah judge has sentenced a high school English teacher who pleaded guilty to sexually abusing three male students to up to 30 years in prison.
Brianne Altice, a married mother of one, had sexual relations with one 16-year-old and two 17-year-old male students, prosecutors.
One of the students reportedly said he considered her to be his girlfriend during their one-year relationship.
Altice was jailed after it was alleged that she resumed a sexual relationship with one of the boys while she was out on bail and her case still in court.
She pleaded guilty to three counts of forcible sexual abuse in April and had begged Judge Thomas Kay not to jail her.
But the judge said she needed jail time to change her life.
"You were the adult, you were the teacher, you were the one that could have stopped that from happening," he said.
According to ABC News, she cried and apologized to her victims in court on Thursday.
"I am human, and I messed up during a very vulnerable time in my life," she said.
The mother of the 16-year-old victim said Altice had damaged her victims.
"You hurt my son in ways that you will never know. You hurt all of those boys," said the woman.
Her lawyer claims she gave in after the boys flirted with her while she was dealing with self-esteem problems.
But the prosecutor Cristina Ortega said even though the students flirted, Altice should discouraged them.
"She enjoyed the positive attention she was getting from them, but I think she failed to recognize that she was the adult, and this wasn't positive attention," she said.
Altice has since been fired from her job and her husband filed for divorce and custody of their child.
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