Missouri prosecutors dismissed their case against a former high school teacher accused of sexually assaulting her student after the two recently got married, a report said.
Baylee Turner, 26, had been facing a charge of sexual contact with a student by a teacher after allegedly admitting to police she had sex with the student at her home in January 2019.
But with the potential application of spousal privilege — as a result of her marriage to the student in the case — prosecutors dropped the charge against Turner, the Joplin Globe reported.
Nate Dally, an assistant prosecutor in the case, told the newspaper that the state would have a hard time prosecuting Turner without the ability to compel the student to testify.
It’s unclear when the two tied the knot. Court documents also didn’t provide the age of the student, the report said.
Turner resigned from Sarcoxie High School after her February 2019 arrest. She has since surrendered her teaching license.
The case is reminiscent to the infamous union between the late Washington state teacher Mary Kay Letourneau and the man she raped when he was a 12-year-old student in 1996.
Letourneau pleaded guilty to rape in 1997 in the shocking case in which she admitted to a sexual relationship with preteen Vili Fualaau. The pair ended up having two children together.
She did seven years behind bars and registered as a sex offender, but married Fualaau in 2005.
Fualaau filed for separation in 2017 and Letourneau died of colon cancer in 2020 at the age of 58.