Teacher Charged With Rape Garry Middle School Teacher Gave 14-Year-Old Student Gifts, Promised To Marry Her

A Garry Middle School science teacher who showered a 14-year-old student with gifts, sent her cards and promised to marry her is charged with third-degree rape.

Paul Ramsey, 38, was fired last month from the Spokane School District, where he’s worked for the past two years. He was out of town Thursday when prosecutors filed the rape charge and is expected to turn himself in to police early next week.

He will plead not guilty, said his attorney, Carl Oreskovich.

Spokane School District 81 officials said Ramsey admitted hugging, kissing and making verbal and physical sexual advances toward the girl earlier this year, but denies having sex with her. The victim told police the two had sex in her bedroom while her parents were at work one day in July.

“This has been a traumatic event for the family,” said Richard Eymann, the victim’s attorney. “We can only hope that this won’t cloud her entire high school career.”

The girl’s family moved from their northeast home to the South Side shortly after school ended and the relationship was revealed, Eymann said. Her parents found letters Ramsey had written to their daughter and asked her about it.

She told police her friendship with the teacher blossomed into romance during a field trip to Mount St. Helens on the last day of school. The two kept in touch over the summer, she said.

Besides calling her at home and keeping a daily “love ledger” of his thoughts of her, Ramsey gave the girl a Black Hills gold ring and talked about getting married, Detective Brian Schwarz said.

She kept a journal with letters written to him as well, and the two exchanged notebooks periodically.

“I think she really felt like she was having a relationship, like she was in love,” Schwarz said. “It was her first real boyfriend and her first sexual experience.”

Ramsey was involved with other women during his relationship with the middle school student, a former girlfriend said.

“He’s manipulative,” said the 37-year-old woman, who didn’t want her name used. “He was having a relationship with me, another woman and a 14-year-old all at the same time.”

Ramsey, a Shadle Park High School and Eastern Washington University graduate, has four children by three different women. He taught and coached basketball at Lakeland High School in Rathdrum for several years before being hired at Garry.

The letters Ramsey gave the girl were written in a pleasant, non-suggestive tone, police said.

“They were ‘I’m thinking about you, I want to be with you, I miss you, you’re beautiful’ - those kind of letters,” Schwarz said.

Oreskovich refused comment on his client’s relationship with the girl.

In Ramsey’s termination letter dated July 20, Spokane Superintendent Gary Livingston said he believed Ramsey had had sex with the victim.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo