A creepy South Carolina “Instructor of the 12 months” who admitted to bombarding an 11-year-old pupil with greater than 60 love letters will solely should serve probation.
Dylan Robert Dukes, 27, was handed the slap on the wrist sentence after pleading responsible final week to harassing the younger lady with the notes, items and undesirable hugs when she was in his class at Starr Elementary Faculty final yr, WSAZ reported.
At one level, Dukes even gave the lady a customized field with a letter for every day of week for all the summer time break.
When the lady’s household ultimately pulled her from the college, the obsessed instructor went so far as becoming a member of her native church.
Cops later discovered scores of photographs of the lady stashed inside Dukes’ desk once they searched his classroom.
The images weren’t sexual in nature, police acknowledged on the time.
“My youngster has needed to endure moments of uncomfortability in locations like church, college and sports activities, the place my youngster needs to be comfy and in a position to get pleasure from being a baby,” the lady’s mother instructed one among his court docket hearings final yr.
“He began attending our church,” she added. “I now understand that this entry to my youngster had continued to develop his obsession.”
The Anderson County Sheriff’s Workplace believed they thwarted the stalking earlier than it developed into something much more sinister.
“Detectives had been in a position to cease the harassment and stalking earlier than it grew to become something bodily – which the juvenile was in concern of,” the sheriff’s workplace stated on the time.
Dukes, who was initially arrested on stalking prices, pleaded responsible to first-degree harassment final week. He was sentenced to a few years in jail, which was suspended to 5 years of probation.
Beneath the phrases of his plea deal, Dukes has to attend psychological well being counseling, quit his educating certificates and cling to a everlasting restraining order that bans any contact with the lady.
Dukes, who was positioned on administrative depart when he was first arrested, was named the college’s 2023–2024 Instructor of the 12 months.
His present standing on the college wasn’t instantly recognized.
