Outrageous way mom says school responded to claim female teacher sent naked photo to boy, 14
Beverly Hernandez claims her son, 14, was left traumatized after he allegedly received a nude photo on Snapchat from his teacher, Oliver Fell, 28, at Haile Middle School in Bradenton, south of Tampa. Fell is also accused of writing 'I want to taste you'.
But rather than protect the child, Hernandez says the school punished him and accused him of lying.
'Not only was I disappointed that a teacher that was put there to protect my child was grooming him … I'm more disappointed that they inflicted more trauma by calling him a liar,' the mother told ABC7.
'By him thinking he was doing the right thing and speaking up, they retaliated against him,' she added.
The allegations came to light after Fell turned herself in to authorities on June 2, days after a warrant was issued for her arrest.
She has since been charged with lewd contact with a student by an authority figure, a second-degree felony, and transmission of harmful material to a minor, a third-degree felony. The judge set a $20,000 bond on Tuesday.
But despite the seriousness of the charges, school officials allegedly kept Fell employed while suspending the boy who came forward, according to Hernandez.
A spokesperson for the school district told Dailymail.com that they 'cannot comment on student disciplinary issues because they are private and protected under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).'
The Manatee County Sheriff's Office said Fell started messaging the boy on Snapchat in December. He reported her to the school in March after she sent him a photo of her breast, they said.
According to court documents Fell sent him three images including one of her in a bathing suit, one in a brown dress and an image of a bare breast.
The school resource officer, Deputy Sadrac Augustin, confronted Fell about the images and she claimed someone was impersonating her.
'She denied the video of the breast being her. Oliver further explained that the two other photos were on her public Instagram account,' the documents said.
'It should be noted the Deputy Augustin didn't use the Snapchat application to navigate through the account and simply accepted her denial of the suspected lewd images.'
Police continued to investigate and obtained a search warrant that confirmed the Snapchat account that sent the images belonged to Fell.
Records show Fell and the victim became friends on Snapchat on December 10, and she deleted him on March 4, the same date she became aware of the investigation.
However, the documents note that the nude photo was not located on her account because Snapchat does not save images.
'[The victim] explained he originally obtained Oliver's Snapchat account from Oliver during school hours,' court documents said.
The teacher was in a group with several others for the purpose of communicating with each other to open a secure door within the school during school hours.
The student claimed he started the private chat with his teacher during Christmas break and the messages started to escalate.
'[Fell] at some point stated, "I want to taste you" with a winking face emoji,'' the filings state.
The boy told police that he asked his teacher if she had ever sent nude photos, which she replied yes, and then he asked her to send him one which she did.
Haile Middle School Principal Irene Nikitopoulos sent a letter to parents after Fell was arrested.
'I am following up on a previous communication I sent about a staff member being investigated for alleged inappropriate posts on social media,' she wrote.
'The staff member, ESE Teacher Oliver Fell, turned herself into the Manatee County Sheriff's Office last night and was subsequently arrested and charged with a second-degree felony and a third-degree felony. Both felonies have to do with illegal social media communications with a student at our school.
'It took several weeks of investigation to confirm the allegations of the illegal communications,' she continued.
'Once law enforcement had sufficient confirmation, our school and district were informed and Ms Fell was immediately reassigned to a position away from our school where she had no contact with students.
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