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TOOELE - Tooele High School substitute teacher Cameo Patch was sentenced Monday to a fine, counseling and probation for having sex with a 17-year-old male student.
But if the gender roles had been reversed, Patch might be in jail now.
"If this were a 29-year-old male and a 17-year-old female, I would be inclined to order some incarceration," said 3rd District Judge Mark Kouris during Patch's sentencing hearing. "Why is this different than that?"
Defense attorney Jon Williams explained that the boy not only initiated the sexual tryst, he lied to Patch by telling her he was 18 years old.
"He created the environment and invited the error," Williams said.
The student, who knew Patch because she had substituted during his senior English class, approached her last January at the restaurant where he worked and where Patch happened to be dining.
The boy initiated a conversation, they arranged to meet later that night and ended up engaging in oral sex in a car.
Patch told the judge she asked the boy's age and had no reason to doubt him when he said he was 18.
At the time of the sexual encounter, Patch had not substituted for several weeks, Williams said. And it had been "weeks and weeks" since Patch had even seen the student at school, he said.
Williams told The Tribune that the incident came to light because the boy told his girlfriend, who told her mother, who told school officials, who called the police.
Patch was charged with third-degree felony unlawful sexual conduct with a 16- or 17-year-old. She pleaded guilty last month to class A misdemeanor sexual battery.
Neither the boy nor his parents attended the sentencing hearing, but prosecutor David Cundick said he had consulted with them about the plea deal.
A pre-sentence report compiled by Adult Probation and Parole recommended no jail time for Patch.
Cundick urged the judge to follow the recommendation, saying the AP&P agent had done "a considerable amount of work" in preparing the report.
The judge suspended a one-year jail term and placed Patch on probation for 36 months.
He also ordered her to obtain a psycho-sexual evaluation and fined her $2,000. But the judge said Patch could deduct the cost of the evaluation and her ongoing counseling from the fine.
"The only thing I can say is that I understand the mistake that I made," Patch told the judge. "It opened my eyes to the life I want to live for myself and my [three] kids. I'll never wind up in this situation again."
Patch and her husband divorced last month.
Still pending in Tooele County is the case of 42-year-old Leslie Baird, a female school employee accused of supplying alcohol to two Tooele High School students, ages 17 and 18, and having sex with the 17-year-old. Police say she also had sex with the 18-year-old, but that is not a crime, according to prosecutors
For having sex with the 17-year-old, Baird was charged with two counts of first-degree forcible sodomy and one count of second-degree felony forcible sexual abuse.
She is also charged with two misdemeanor counts of supplying alcohol to minors.
Baird - a math remediation computer lab instructor who worked at Tooele High for six years - was charged more harshly than Patch because she allegedly "occupied a position of special trust in relation to the victim."
In a separate case, Baird is charged with three counts of dealing in harmful material to a minor for sending sexually explicit text messages that were read by two students.
Baird's next court appearance is Oct. 3 before Kouris.