'He wanted her dead': Jury hears graphic testimony in trial of teacher accused of sex abuse
Editor's note: This story contains descriptions of an attempted suicide and child sexual abuse that readers may find disturbing.
WEST PALM BEACH — A former SouthTech Academy student walked into court wearing the high heels her teacher once told her not to. He preferred pigtails, no makeup and flats — anything that didn't make her look like a woman, she said.
Now 17, she pointed to Damian Conti, the former AP English teacher who she says sexually assaulted her "almost every day."
Conti, 37, is on trial for four counts of unlawful sex between a student and teacher and one of attempted assisted suicide. Prosecutors say he groomed and assaulted the girl over the course of the 2023–24 school year, then drove her to hang herself after his crimes were exposed.
Palm Beach County sheriff's deputies found the teen hanging from a noose after school officials discovered inappropriate messages between the teacher and student. Deputies cut the rope and resuscitated her before taking her to the pediatric intensive care unit of St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach, where she slowly recovered.
"He wanted her dead," Assistant State Attorney Alexa Ruggiero said June 24. "You'll see that when he's given the good news of her being alive still, you'll see and hear just how disappointed he is."'
Ruggiero told jurors that Conti exploited his position of trust, slowly escalating the relationship from school emails to explicit Instagram messages and secret meetings for sex in secluded parking lots off campus. The prosecutor said he isolated his student from her friends and family, showered her with gifts and sent texts so explicit the jurors cringed.
Conti's lead attorney, Assistant Public Defender Lily Boehmer, disagreed. She said the teacher had an inappropriate emotional connection with his student but never a sexual one.
They said "I love you," she said. They talked every day. They went to the beach and drew hearts in the sand. They bought one another coffee, ran errands together, sent explicit messages to each other and "even kissed."
"They pushed the boundary," Boehmer said. "But they never crossed it."
She argued that the inappropriate messages discovered on the girl's phone caused authorities to jump to the wrong conclusion. As for why Conti admitted to sexually abusing the girl during his arrest, Boehmer said he was "willing to do and say anything" to protect the girl.
Prosecutors said the opposite was true. They pointed to surveillance-camera footage of Conti accompanying the girl through a Home Depot near Lake Worth Beach where she bought enough rope to end both of their lives. The girl testified that she planned for the two of them to drive to a secluded area to hang themselves, though Conti told her repeatedly not to do it.
Conti "said he didn't want to get charged with my murder," the girl testified. After she bought the rope anyway, she said he told her he wanted to go home to give his children a final goodbye. He remained in the Home Depot parking lot while she drove away with the rope.
"I remember putting my head through the noose. I remember the rope holding me from the ground," she said. "I was dangling from the ground. I was losing oxygen."
The last thing she said she remembers were her silent prayers for forgiveness.
The girl testified from 11:30 a.m. until nearly 3 p.m., with a one-hour break in the middle, before prosecutors concluded their direct examination.
Boehmer began her cross examination by alerting jurors to an ongoing civil lawsuit between the teen's family and SouthTech Academy. In the suit, the girl's parents accuse school administrators of turning a blind eye to Conti's conduct toward their daughter.
"If you win the lawsuit, it's your understanding that you and your family will get a monetary gain?" Boehmer said. "Specifically, you and your family are asking for upwards of $75,000 in damages?"
The teen said yes. Boehmer tried several times to ask the girl whether the outcome of Conti's criminal trial would affect the outcome of the civil lawsuit, but Circuit Judge Howard Coates struck the question each time as irrelevant.
Boehmer moved on. She instead asked the teen to confirm whether she was the first to share her cellphone number with Conti, whether she was the first to kiss him on the cheek, whether she called Conti "Baby," "Sweet angel," "Sweet pea" and "Babe" in her messages to him.
The girl agreed.
This was a "relationship without a label," Boehmer said. She used that word — relationship — easily, though it had caused prosecutors to apologize each time they said it before her.
"He never threatened you to have sex?" Boehmer asked. "He never physically pinned you down to force himself upon you? He never bribed you to have sex?"
The girl said no to each.
Coates paused the cross examination shortly before 4 p.m. and sent the jury home for the day. The girl will return to the witness stand when the trial resumes June 26.
Hannah Phillips is a journalist covering public safety and criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at hphillips@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: SouthTech Academy student describes sex abuse by teacher Damian Conti
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