A former middle school teacher was sent to prison for six years Tuesday for having sexual encounters with five teenage boys.Allenna Ward, 24, tearfully asked the rural community to forgive her.

“I apologize from the depths of my heart,” Ward said in court.

Arrest warrants said Ward met 14- and 15-year-old boys at the school where she taught as well as at a motel, a park and behind a restaurant.

Some of the victims’ families attended the sentencing but did not speak during the court hearing.

“I just feel like justice has been served,” the sister of one victim said after the hearing.

The Associated Press does not normally identify victims of sexual crimes.

Police began investigating last year after school officials found a note believed to have been written by Ward to one of the boys. Some of the victims were students at Bell Street Middle School in Clinton, where Ward taught. The teacher was fired about one year ago.

Ward pleaded guilty in September to three counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor and three lewd acts on a minor.

She was sentenced Tuesday to 15 years in prison for each lewd act count, but the punishments were suspended to six years. She also was sentenced to six years on each second-degree criminal sexual conduct count. The sentences are to run concurrently.

Ward’s attorney didn’t want to speak to a reporter after the hearing.

Ward is one of two Laurens County teachers that has been sent to prison. Wendie Ann Schweikert, a former elementary school teacher, was sentenced in June to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to having sex with an 11-year-old student.

http://ahilosu.com/2008/02/20/allenna-ward-the-teacher-sent-to-prison-for-having-sex-with-students/
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