http://nky.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/AB/20090731/NEWS0103/908010363/
Teacher denies student's sex charge
By Jim Hannah â┚¬�Ôš¢ July 31, 2009
COVINGTON - Six months after a Dayton High School teacher was charged with having sex with a pupil, the 26-year-old has launched a media campaign to proclaim her innocence.
Nicole Howell, who lost her job because of the charge, has gone on television and radio this week to say she is a victim of false rumors.
She is scheduled to go to trial Oct. 13 in Kenton Circuit Court on one count of first-degree sexual abuse. The former English teacher and assistant cheerleading coach faces up to five years in pris
on if found guilty.
Howell, who is free on a $500 bond, said she didn't speak out earlier because her original attorney, Pat Moeves, advised her against it. He has since withdrawn from the case, and her new attorney, Eric Deters, said he encouraged his client to speak out.
Howell denies many of the claims made in a criminal affidavit and by a Covington police detective during a preliminary hearing.
She denied the detective's claims that she telephoned the then 16-year-old high school student and invited him to her MainStrasse apartment for alcoholic drinks. She has even submitted phone records to the court that she claims show she didn't speak with the boy during the time of the alleged crime.
Also at the preliminary hearing, the detective claimed that
the boy accurately described the inside of Howell's home and a tattoo on her back.
"He doesn't describe the inside of my apartment," said Howell, who has been privy to the prosecutor's evidence so she can prepare
for trial. "In terms of describing my physical attributes, tattoos included, he does not describe those in its entirety."
Howell did admit to speaking to the boy on the phone, but only after he got her number off her phone while it was unattended. Howell said the conversations were not sexual.
"It didn't happen, and there is nothing to connect us," Howell said. "I was never his teacher. I never saw him anywhere expect on a school ground, meaning Dayton, the football field, or Bellevue, because they have a football stadium there."
She speculated the boy may have made up the story in hopes of being able to file a civil suit against the school district to collect a settlement.
"I'm still fighting this," Howell said. "I've hired two different attorneys. I have not stopped. I have put a motion to dismiss in."
Kenton Circuit Judge Gregory Bartlett ultimately ruled against her motion to dismiss. He wrote in his order that it was up to a jury to determine the validity
of the evidence.
She claims prosecutors first offered her a plea agreement of 90 days in jail, 20 years as a registered sex offender and five years probation. She says prosecutors are now offering her no jail time and the ability to avoid sex-offender registration if she will plead guilty to a felony.
Commonwealth's Attorney Rob Sanders said he will not comment on any plea negotiations.
He also wouldn't comment on the strength of the evidence against Howell.
"I'm ethically prohibited from discussing the evidence pretrial," Sanders said. "This is why we have trials. A grand jury of 12 citizens in Kenton County heard the evidence that the commonwealth had and saw fit to indict her as charged.
"A jury of 12 citizens of Kenton County will hear the evidence against her and decide whether or not she is guilty beyond reasonable doubt."
Sanders accused Howell of trying to taint a jury pool by engaging in a debate about the validity of the charge in the media.
"We ha
ndle over 1,000 serious felony cases a year in this office," Sanders said. "We don't have time to chase frivolous allegations. If we didn't think these allegations, and charges, can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, we would have not taken the case to a grand jury."
