Teacher Claims Innocence in Student Sex Scandal
Mary Beth Haglin, 24, a substitute teacher in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is charged with sexual exploitation by a counselor, therapist, or school employee, after allegedly having sex with a 17-year-old student for six months, The Gazette reports. While she awaits trial, Haglin appeared on Dr. Phil to discuss how she believes she, not her underage student, is the victim in this situation.
“From a psychological standpoint and from every other standpoint, I feel like I am the victim,” Haglin told Dr. Phil on Monday. She alleged the student initiated the relationship and that it began while she was having a fight with her boyfriend and upset, so the student knew she was vulnerable.
The teacher said the student spoke “with such intelligence and such an elevated vocabulary, that [she] was completely duped by the whole façade,” causing her to forget his age and start the affair. She also said the pair had sex every day and hundreds of times, whether it be in her car in the school parking lot or at his mom’s house.
Haglin also said she felt pressured to send the teen nude pictures of herself and that she felt betrayed after he showed the pictures to his friends (to which Dr. Phil replied “You have got to be dumber than a box of rocks to share naked pictures with a 17-year-old boy.”), but still couldn’t exit the relationship: “When things got way out of control, and I wanted out, he began saying ‘I will light a match and burn your life down,” she said.
Before her Dr. Phil appearance, Haglin spoke with Inside Edition, saying she was "head over heels" in love with the boy but can’t believe she let the affair go as far as it did. It only ended after another student spotted Haglin and the 17-year-old having sex and reported them.
According to the Des Moines Register, Haglin has pleaded not guilty and is set to start trial next month. She’s been asked to move out of the county in the meantime and was banned from teaching at any Cedar Rapids Community School District schools as of July when she was charged, but “through a miscommunication,” she continued working as an employee at an elementary school through the end of the school year. If convicted, Haglin faces two years in prison and will have to register as a sex offender.
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