Teacher In Sex Case Loses Job
A Jenkins High School business teacher accused of seducing two male students was fired Wednesday night by the Chewelah School Board.
The 35-year-old teacher, Gwyn Townsend, has been on paid suspension since Jan. 19, 1996. An arbitrator conducted a closed hearing last month and ruled the school district had grounds to fire Townsend.
She has moved away and could not be reached for comment. Earlier, though, she denied the charges.
Townsend is no longer teaching, and still faces a state investigation that could result in revocation of her license.
“It’s an unfortunate outcome,” said her Spokane attorney, Bill Powell. “She’s a nice person and I hate to see this happen to her.”
He said only one of the boys who accused her testified at the hearing. Both boys are “good buddies” of a man Townsend said raped her, Powell said.
Court documents indicate the boy who testified was a 17-year-old student in 1993, when he claimed Townsend seduced him. He said she engaged in heavy petting, kissing and topless contact with him in the bunkhouse he lived in next to his parents’ house.
Townsend “admitted everything and begged for forgiveness and understanding” when confronted by the boy’s stepmother, Colville attorney John Troberg said in a court document. Troberg represented one of two men accused of raping Townsend on Dec. 7, 1995.
Townsend said she drove the boy home and accepted an invitation to look at his bunkhouse, but her 7-year-old son was present and nothing improper happened.
The other high school boy who accused Townsend said she asked him to live with her and implied he would be paid with sex for providing child care and performing household chores, Troberg said. Townsend said she gave the boy several rides, including one to Spokane, but they never talked about sex.
The boys accused Townsend shortly after she told authorities she was raped by a 21-year-old boyfriend, Tony Borg Jr. Townsend said the boys are friends of Borg, who was one of her students three years earlier.
Townsend said Borg raped and sodomized her while a friend of his, Mike Conner, held her down.
The three of them had a “cordial social evening” in her home until Borg became crude and aggressive, Townsend said. She said the incident occurred after she and Borg broke off a brief sexual relationship that was so intense they had each other’s name tattooed on their fingers.
Borg and Conner gave incriminating statements to police, but later claimed Townsend consented to sex with them. Borg produced a photograph Conner took on the night of the alleged rape, showing Townsend smiling while Borg held his arm around her.
A Stevens County jury acquitted Borg of second-degree rape and unlawful imprisonment, and Prosecutor Jerry Wetle moved to dismiss identical charges against Conner.
, DataTimes