A former Idaho teacher has been arrested following a traffic stop that led authorities to the claims that she had raped the teen boy driving her vehicle.
Authorities say Jessica Lawson, 36, let the boy drive because she was too intoxicated, the Idaho State Journal reported.
But what’s worse is that Lawson, a recently divorced mother, is also accused of raping a 16- or 17-year-old victim. She now faces two felony counts of rape and another felony charge for delivering a controlled substance and a misdemeanor for dispensing alcohol to a minor, per Fremont County Magistrate Court records.
The teen was pulled over in Lawson’s car in the early hours of Nov. 6 for driving without visible taillights. But the former teacher was not in the car. The boy told officers that he had been smoking marijuana and was driving the car because Lawson was drunk.
He was reportedly taken home by an officer where he eventually told his parents that Lawson had picked him up around 11 p.m. the night before and taken him to her home, according to court documents that are now sealed.
The boy told his parents that Lawson got drunk and high before they had sex. Before calling the police to report the crime, Lawson allegedly called the boy’s mother and said she had given her son alcohol and admitted that there was marijuana in her house, but said that the boy didn’t smoke. She also denied that “anything else had occurred.”
Lawson taught at South Fremont High School from August 2021 through June 2023, the New York Post reported. She has been charged with two felony counts of rape of a victim between 16 and 17 years old and whom the perpetrator was three or more years older than, as well as a felony count of controlled substance delivery and the misdemeanor of dispensing alcohol to a minor.
She is currently being held in Madison County Jail on a bond of $250,000.
