Lakewood, California - Former Lakewood High School Teacher Mary Jahn Sentenced to 3 Years For Sexual Abuse of Student

Ex-Lakewood Teacher Sentenced to 3 Years in Prison For Sexually Abusing Student

Last Update: 7/13/2020

A former teacher at Lakewood High School was sentenced to three years in prison on Friday, November 30 after she pleaded no contest to sexually abusing a former student who came forward years after the abuse.

Along with ordering the prison sentence, Long Beach Superior Court Judge Laura Laesecke also ordered 53-year-old Mary Jahn to register as a sex offender for life and to avoid the victim and all contact with her for 10 years.

Jahn was an English teacher at Lakewood High for 11 years before she was arrested in September 2017, months after a former student contacted police to report that she had a sexual relationship with Jahn for three years, beginning when she was just 15 years old.

Jahn was charged with four counts of sexual penetration by foreign object, three counts of lewd acts upon a child, and two counts of oral copulation of a person under 18. She was originally facing up to eight years and four months in prison. Jahn agreed to plead no contest to one count of a lew act with a child in exchange for prosecutors agreeing to drop the other charges.

Legal Rights of Teacher Sexual Assault Victims

An experienced attorney and regular contributor to Legal Herald, Bobby Thompson has dedicated his legal career to representing survivors of sexual assault in lawsuits against schools for sex abuse. On the legal options available to survivors of sexual abuse committed by teachers and other school staff members, he had the following information to share.

“Our children spend most of their days at school, and we entrust the teachers and other staff with not only their care and education, but also their personal growth. While most teachers may be worthy of this trust, some turn out to be sexual predators who use their positions of authority and trust as a means to sexually abuse their students. When this happens, the victims deserve justice, which they can find in both criminal and civil courts,” Bobby elucidated.

“Indeed, the criminal justice system handles the investigation and prosecution of sexual predators. Additionally, the survivors of sexual assault and abuse often have grounds to file a lawsuit in civil court. In cases involving school employees, the school district may also be held liable if their negligence contributed to the abuse – such as a failure to run a background check or report previous allegations of sexual misconduct.”