Pamela Rogers, the Warren County elementary school teacher and coach, admitted guilt today on four counts of sexual battery by an authority figure for having a sexual affair with a 13-year-old star athlete student.
Rogers, 28, was sentenced to 270 days in the Warren County jail and will surrender her state teaching certificate for life. Circuit Court Judge Bart Stanley also barred her from granting interviews or profiting from her story during eight years of probation.
Her plea avoids a trial that could have landed Rogers in prison for two to 16 years if she had been found guilty of all 28 counts from her February indictment. It was a no contest plea, which has the same effect as a guilty plea in court and in fact contains an admission of guilt in the document.
The plea also brings some finality to the teacher-student sex affair that rocked this small Middle Tennessee community when it made national headlines in February.
Rogers, 28, entered court in a brown pin-striped suit and pink top with rings on both hands. After the hearing, a sheriff's deputy asked her to place her rings and earrings in a brown envelope before handcuffing her in front of her parents and taking her away to jail.
Prosecutor Dale Potter said Turner could get out in about 200 days with good behavior.
Potter said sex acts happened at the boy's home while his parents slept, at the teacher's home and at Centertown Elementary.
A series of conditions on Rogers' probation will keep her away from secondary public or private school property in Tennessee unless she is accompanied by one of her parents to sporting events.
Turner's father is Lamar Rogers, a state championship high school basketball coach in Fentress County.
Rogers used to be known as Pamela Rogers Turner, but her attorney said today that her divorce from Warren County High School basketball coach Chris Turner is now final.