Teacher arrested in sex with student

A 49-year-old female teacher from a Phoenix elementary school was arrested at a hotel Saturday after luring a 14-year-old boy there through text messages that portrayed herself as a sexually active teenager, according to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.

Rosanna Brown of Chandler, an English teacher at Ed Pastor Elementary School, 2101 W. Alta Vista Road in Phoenix, admitted to having sexual relations with the boy, according to the sheriff’s office.

Sheriff’s deputies arrested Brown on suspicion of three counts of crimes against children involving sexual conduct with a minor at the Best Western Hotel, 5300 S. Priest Drive in Guadalupe near the Tempe border, said Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

The school has placed Brown on paid administrative leave from her job pending the outcome of the investigation, and she is being held in the Maricopa County Fourth Avenue Jail without bond.

Brown had checked into the hotel on Saturday. By using the boy’s girlfriend’s cell phone, she texted him to come to the room to have sex, according to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office arrest report.

Brown told authorities that the boy’s girlfriend was her goddaughter, and the girl wanted her to rent the room so she and the boy could “hang out,” according to the report.

Instead, Brown told authorities she went to the room because she did not want her goddaughter to lose her virginity to the boy, and wanted to see “how far he would go,” the report stated.

When the boy arrived at the hotel, he claimed the room was dark, and that he believed he was having sex with a teenage girl, Arpaio said. But when Brown turned the light on in the room, the boy realized it was his English teacher and not his girlfriend, according to the arrest report.

After the boy left the room, he told his mother, who came to the hotel and confronted Brown, who answered the door of the hotel room wearing only a towel, according to the report.

When deputies arrived at the hotel, Brown was hiding in a bathroom before she was taken away in handcuffs, Arpaio said.

If convicted on the offenses, Brown could face 14 to 35 years in prison on each count for having sex with a minor under the age of 15, according to the sheriff’s office.

Investigators discovered that Brown, who is married and has two adult children, had been communicating with the boy through text messages in the days leading up to the incident.

Brown’s husband and daughter claimed not to know the girlfriend and Brown admitted to taking the girl’s phone to arrange the encounter, according to the arrest report.

Arpaio said that Brown had been a teacher for 28 years, and deputies are pursuing leads to determine if there are any other victims.

Prior to teaching at Ed Pastor, Brown taught at Cesar Chavez Elementary School in Phoenix for 10 years, according to the sheriff’s office.

Officials at Ed Pastor Elementary School were unavailable for comment.

“There’s too much of this stuff going on,” Arpaio said of educator sexual misconduct with underaged students. “If you look at local and national headlines, this sort of thing seems to be on the rise. This is the lowest form of humanity possible. If you can’t trust a teacher, who can you trust?”