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Ex-bus driver convicted; teacher charged
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LEFT TO RIGHT: John Byrne, Rosanna Brown
A former Queen Creek school bus driver has been convicted of molesting a teenager, and a Phoenix school teacher was charged in sexually related offenses with a minor, the Maricopa County Attorney's Office announced Wednesday.
John Byrne, a former school bus driver in the Queen Creek Unified School District, is facing 23 to 45 years in prison for six sexually related counts against a minor, including child molestation and dangerous crimes against children. Byrne, who drove a school bus for Queen Creek Middle School and Jack Barnes Elementary School, was found guilty after a nine-day trial that ended Wednesday.
Byrne, 64, of Queen Creek, admitted to Maricopa County sheriff's deputies in August 2007 that he began having sex with a 15-year-old girl when she was 14, according to the sheriff's office.
The girl, who was a student at Queen Creek Middle School, told deputies that Byrne began molesting her when she was in the seventh grade.
Byrne made arrangements to pick the girl up before school and would molest her when he was on the bus alone with her, according to the county attorney's office.
Byrne originally was indicted on 11 felony sexually related counts with a minor in September 2007.
He was suspended from the Queen Creek Unified School District in August 2007 and then fired on Sept. 4, 2007, the day he was indicted, said Ruby Morris, the district superintendent's secretary.
In a more recent incident, Rosanna Brown, 49, a female English teacher at Ed Pastor Elementary School in Phoenix, was charged with three felony counts of dangerous crimes against children involving sexual conduct with a minor, according to the county attorney's office.
Brown, a Chandler resident and teacher for the last 28 years, admitted to having sex with a 14-year-old student at the Best Western Hotel in Guadalupe near the Tempe border on Saturday after she lured him to the hotel by using a cell phone that belonged to the boy's girlfriend.
The boy told sheriff's office deputies he thought he was going to the hotel to have sex with his girlfriend, but the hotel room was dark and he didn't realize he had sex with his teacher until she turned the light on.
School officials at Ed Pastor could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.
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