Teacher Who Slept With High School Student: 'I Didn't Think It Was Legally Wrong'

Teacher Who Slept With High School Student: 'I Didn't Think It Was Legally Wrong'

Tanya Ramirez was a 29-year-old high school teacher in Texas when she slept with a 17-year-old student, and although she pled guilty to an improper relationship between teacher and student, she says she doesn’t think she acted inappropriately.
“I didn’t think it was wrong. It never once felt like I was talking to a child,” Ramirez says of the teen with whom she had been texting for three weeks before the encounter. “I wasn’t thinking, 'Wait a minute, I’m a teacher,' because this was all happening outside of school.” She adds that they were both consenting adults, as 17 is the age of consent in Texas.

Ramirez says on the night of the encounter, the teen arrived at her house at 3am, and they went to her bedroom, basically, immediately. She claims that unbeknownst to her, the teen recorded part of the encounter and sent it to his friends -- and that’s how their tryst became public and led to her termination at the school.

“When I found out there was a tape, I was in shock, felt betrayed. We had been talking for almost a month, so I trusted him that I could have sex with him and him not say anything, and we could keep it a secret,” Ramirez says in the video above. “I do, now, feel that I was set up. I do feel that there was some type of motive or intent to get it out there that he had sex with a teacher.”

Ramirez tells Dr. Phil she believes the teen may have set her up to gain “bragging rights” among his peers. “The fact that he hid his phone and then, obviously, as soon as it was finished, he distributed it to 11 of his friends, and from there, it went viral,” she alleges.

Ramirez, who is now suing the boy, accusing him of “extreme and outrageous” conduct and invasion of privacy, maintains that she did nothing wrong.

“I didn’t think it was legally wrong,” Ramirez states. “I know, obviously, with my profession, I crossed a boundary with the contract that I signed, but legally, I didn’t think I would be classified as a felon, being charged with having sex with a consenting adult.”

Ramirez comes face to face with the teen for the first time since their encounter on Wednesday’s episode of Dr. Phil. Check here to see where you can watch.

Also on HuffPost:

Shelley Dufresne, Rachel Respess

Teacher-Student Sex Abuse Cases

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