SAN ANTONIO, June 23 (UPI) -- A former eighth-grade math teacher in Texas was sentenced to 10 years in prison for improperly touching and having phone sex with a 13-year-old girl.
Nora Lynn Martinez, 30, pleaded guilty to touching the female student at Stevenson Middle School in San Antonio and persisting in a phone-sex relationship after she was initially arrested, the San Antonio Express-News reported Wednesday. She was also ordered to surrender her teaching certificate and avoid all contact with the student.
The relationship was discovered in January when the girl's father found text messages on her phone from the teacher saying she loved her and wanted them to elope.
"Probably in early December we started holding hands and our hugs started lasting longer," the student told police in a handwritten statement. "Kissing began in mid-December."
"The student would stay after school and we became close," Martinez said in her own police statement. "She did not say no."
Defense attorney Jason Trumpler said Martinez took full responsibility for her actions.
"She recognizes what she did was a horrible thing," Trumpler said. "Her heart truly goes out to the victim and her family in this case."
Martinez could be eligible for parole in five years and must register as a sex offender for life upon her release.
