East Bay Times – by Joseph Geha
A former high school teacher in Fremont who pleaded no contest to charges of having unlawful sex with an underage student may not face any jail time for her crimes, a prosecutor said last week.
Corine Audiat, also known as Audiat-Gee, agreed to a deal with the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office last month in which she pleaded no contest to two felony charges in exchange for the dismissal of five other charges, according to court records.
She will be placed on probation and could face other penalties, said Teresa Drenick, a spokeswoman for the District Attorney’s Office.
Audiat was arrested in late 2016 for allegedly having sex with a student who attended Washington High School, where she had been a teacher since 2012.
According to the plea deal announced in court Dec. 19, Audiat did not contest charges of having unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, commonly known as statutory rape, and oral copulation of a person under 18, in the summer of 2016; both are felonies.
Four other felony charges, including three of contacting a minor for sex and one of sending harmful material to a minor with sexual intent, were dropped, as was a misdemeanor child molestation charge.
Audiat is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 9. As part of the plea deal, she may serve 180 days in county jail. But the judge instead could allow her to serve that time electronically monitored outside jail. She also faces three to five years of probation and will have to register as a sex offender in California and surrender her teaching credential, which was suspended following her arrest, Drenick said.
Audiat also will need to serve 150 hours of community service, turn in DNA samples to law enforcement, stay away from her victim for 10 years, and complete one year of sex offender counseling, according to the plea deal.
In addition, she will be barred from having unsupervised contact with people under the age of 18 during probation and may face other “fees, fines and restitution as determined by the judge,” Drenick said.
Drenick declined to elaborate on the rationale for the plea deal. “We don’t get into the background as to why we’ve decided to let somebody plead with a certain negotiated deal,” she said on a phone call in late December.
Audiat had taught in the Fremont Unified School District since 2008. In addition to teaching physical education at Washington, Audiat was a swim coach at Mission San Jose High School in Fremont and for an East Bay Swim League team in Fremont called the Glenmoor Stingrays.
Elizabeth Grossman, Audiat’s attorney, did not respond to messages seeking comment about the plea deal.
Fremont police said they began investigating Audiat on Nov. 23, 2016, after receiving a tip that she had been involved with a male student. They arrested her Thanksgiving day on two felony charges and booked her into Santa Rita Jail. She was released after posting $130,000 bail.
On Nov. 30, the District Attorney’s Office filed additional charges, bringing the total to six felonies and one misdemeanor. The next day, Audiat turned herself in at the Fremont Police Department. The bail amount was then adjusted based on the extra charges and she was released the same day after posting a total of $230,000.
A lawsuit was filed earlier this year against the Fremont Unified School District as a result of the charges brought against Audiat.
Filed by San Jose-based attorney B. Robert Allard on behalf of the alleged victim, the suit accused Audiat of “grooming” her students or enticing them with months of flirtation, texting and open displays of affection, such as hugging.
In May 2016, Audiat, then 32, texted a 16-year-old boy that she wanted to pull him into the gym equipment room and kiss him, the lawsuit states. The relationship turned sexual the next month, according to the lawsuit.
Staff writer Angela Ruggiero contributed to this report.
Where was this teacher when I was 16?…. 🙂
Oh I know….. how insensitive of me….
lol
The new ‘norm’.
‘may face other “fees, fines and restitution as determined by the judge,” ……I guess they figured they could make more money off of her if she was out of jail