California Teacher, 41 resigns after leaving wife, kids for student, 18

[Deberg_1990]

Can you really stop true love?


http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headline...ormer-teacher/



An angry California mother is alleging abuse now that her 18-year-old daughter is living with her former high school teacher, who left his wife and children to move into an apartment with the young woman.

James Hooker, 41, quit his job after going public with his love for Jordan Powers, who stopped attending classes at her Modesto high school and left home to be with her former business teacher.

The girl’s mother is skeptical of the couple’s claims that nothing sexual happened between them, and exactly when the relationship became physical has become the center of a police investigation.

“She looked up to him,” mom Tammie Powers said. “[He was in the] position of an educator, [and you] don’t abuse your student. Period. She’s still in high school. She still lives at home. She has a curfew. … That’s not OK.”

The couple maintains that their feelings for each other blossomed slowly by spending time together during and after school, and then via phone calls and text messages. The two first met when Jordan was a high school freshman at James Enochs High School, but they say they only developed romantic feelings after she turned 18 in September.

“[He's] my best friend. I mean, he’s more than just a lover,” Jordan Powers said of Hooker, who has a daughter a year younger than her and attended the same high school.

Hooker said that while Jordan Powers was a student in his business class, he didn’t think twice about her. “She was just a student,” he said. “There was no attraction. There was nothing that was out of the ordinary, as opposed to any other student. We were very much a teacher-student role.”

Tammie Powers is unconvinced. As soon as she discovered a long log of text message exchanges, she went straight to the police. She waged her own war on Facebook, posting a letter that went viral telling everyone that classmates took photos of her daughter sitting on Hooker’s lap when she was still his student.

She says that she also discovered 8,000 text messages between the two, along with late-night phone calls and email exchanges that took place when she was still a minor.

“That’s pursuit, in my opinion, with some type of intent,” she told ABC News 10 in California.

But none of the late-night calls or endless texts were a red flag of inappropriateness to him, and says that people looking for proof of an unacceptable relationship before Jordan was 18 are just inquisitive about their connection, Hooker said.

“I think that they’re just digging for something that wasn’t there. I mean, of course, they’re going to be curious,” Hooker added. “But I know for a fact that there was nothing.”

Although Jordan has stopped attending classes, she is now doing independent study through the school and plans to walk at her graduation.

Hooker confirmed that he is under investigation by the Modesto Police Department, but is confident he will be completely cleared of any allegations of inappropriate behavior. He said that he understands that people don’t understand their relationship.

“I think the stigma of the teacher-student relationship just makes it messy, makes it really hard for people to get through to the point that we really do like each other, he said. “We really do want to have a future together.”




http://www.sacbee.com/2012/02/29/430...gns-after.html

[Chiefshrink]

Just watch. If the parents are smart they will hire some PIs to find evidence this 41 y.o molester was involved not only emotionally but probably physically with her prior to her turning 18 and then prison will be his next sexcapade for life which is what he deserves. I assure at a minimum it was an emotional love interest prior to 18. And don't think for a moment with our whacked out court system that once she realizes the honeymoon is over and she got screwed not only physically but moreso taken advantage of emotionally and mentally she will go back and try to sue and lock this mofo up!!

[DTLB58]

Originally Posted by alnorth

This is not a reason to home school. If your local schools suck, you cant move to a better school district, and you've got a really good local home school network with other people who are knowledgeable about teaching subjects that you aren't, and you have access to after-school activities and sports, etc so the kids emotional growth isn't stunted, then that might be a good reason.

This incident is so incredibly rare, as in it happened in Modesto, CA and that becomes a big national story type of exceedingly rare, that you'd be better off being worried every day that your kids might get struck by lightning or eaten by sharks.

Hey, Back in 1957 my dad was 27, mom was 17. For that time, it was probably a horrible thing. But the truth of the matter was, my grandma was dirt poor, the kids in the house had been being abused by men that would come and go and my dad gave her a clean, safe home to live. He worked 2-3 jobs so they could have a better life. They were married 43 years until he passed. I'm sure many thought he was a cradle robber. Sometimes, it's not always about just sex.

[alnorth]

Originally Posted by sportsshrink

Just watch. If the parents are smart they will hire some PIs to find evidence this 41 y.o molester was involved not only emotionally but probably physically with her prior to her turning 18 and then prison will be his next sexcapade for life which is what he deserves. I assure at a minimum it was an emotional love interest prior to 18. And don't think for a moment with our whacked out court system that once she realizes the honeymoon is over and she got screwed not only physically but moreso taken advantage of emotionally and mentally she will go back and try to sue and lock this mofo up!!

I wish her mom good luck. I really do mean it, I don't necessarily have a problem with the age difference, but I am morally repulsed by the teacher's abuse of his position of authority.

However, I doubt anything will come of it, because I don't know what a PI can do here. Unless there's a sex tape somewhere, the only way anyone's ever going to get evidence is if one of those two start talking, and they aren't that stupid.

[Iowanian]

1.Legal or not,Her daddy should have mtg teach him how to punch his spleen out.

2. Home School kids are weird. If you want your kid to be socially awkward, home school them.


Also, the photoshop isn't complete. Scott Pioli is a nice touch but the girl is 18....Peyton Manning is 18. Thereby, I demand that his face be included to improve the aforementioned image to suit today's reality.

[alnorth]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

1.Legal or not,Her daddy should have mtg teach him how to punch his spleen out.

2. Home School kids are weird. If you want your kid to be socially awkward, home school them.


Also, the photoshop isn't complete. Scott Pioli is a nice touch but the girl is 18....Peyton Manning is 18. Thereby, I demand that his face be included to improve the aforementioned image to suit today's reality.

did a quick search, looks like there is no daddy. The father died in 2001.

[Iowanian]

So the sonnabitch groomed a girl with no father figure.

MTG should just go punch the guy's spleen out his no-no hole in honor of the father's memory.

[alnorth]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

So the sonnabitch groomed a girl with no father figure.

MTG should just go punch the guy's spleen out his no-no hole in honor of the father's memory.

yep, sad. Likely too late for her to not be emotionally screwed-up and have any kind of normal life too, that teacher has probably been balls-deep in her every other day since she turned 17.

[vailpass]

Of course there isn't a dad. That is where strippers and girls like this come from: homes where there was something lacking in the daddy department.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by vailpass

Of course there isn't a dad. That is where strippers and girls like this come from: homes where there was something lacking in the daddy department.

What a societal conundrum. Do you promote having more fathers in households, or do you promote having more strippers? I can see good arguments both ways.

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

What a societal conundrum. Do you promote having more fathers in households, or do you promote having more strippers? I can see good arguments both ways.

[Deberg_1990]

update. Dude just got arrested yesterday for a previous underage relationship from 14 years ago.




http://www.modbee.com/2012/04/06/214...ex-enochs.html



A former Modesto high school teacher who attracted national media attention when he left his family and quit his job to move in with his 18-year-old student was arrested Friday. The charge involves alleged sexual misconduct with another teenage girl about 14 years ago.

James Hooker, 41, of Modesto was booked at the Stanislaus County Jail on one count of committing oral copulation of a person under 18, according to a criminal complaint filed Friday in Stanislaus County Superior Court.

The charge stems from an incident that occurred in August 1998, when Hooker was a teacher at Davis High School in Modesto, according to authorities.

Hooker befriended the alleged victim, a 17-year-old girl, and developed a romantic relationship with her, said police Lt. Rick Armendariz. During that relationship, Armendariz said, Hooker sexually abused the girl.

Hooker first came under scrutiny in February when his romantic relationship with Jordan Powers, an 18-year-old former Enochs High student, became public. She moved in with Hooker — her former business teacher — on Feb. 22, the day he resigned from Modesto City Schools.

The relationship became public after Powers' mother, Tammie Powers, began castigating Hooker on her Facebook page. National interest quickly took hold. Hooker and Jordan Powers appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America" and the nationally syndicated "Dr. Phil Show," and Tammie Powers went on "Nancy Grace."

On her Facebook page Friday afternoon, Tammie Powers wrote: "Yes, confirmed James Hooker is in custudy(sic). I am with my daughter as I post this."

She reunited with Jordan Powers and shortly after noon packed her daughter's things at Hooker's Modesto apartment. She told The Bee she was taking her daughter to catch a flight to an undisclosed location Friday afternoon.

Hooker appeared briefly in court Friday for his arraignment. He wore an orange-and-white jail jumpsuit and shackles on his wrists and ankles.

The hearing lasted several minutes. Several courthouse officials and attorneys gathered in the courtroom to watch. It appeared that nobody showed up to support Hooker.


Public defender


The defendant told Judge Thomas Zeff that he could not afford to hire an attorney, so the judge appointed the public defender's office to represent Hooker. He remained in custody at the jail Friday evening; his bail was set at $50,000.

Stanislaus County sheriff's officials said Hooker was in protective custody at the jail because of the nature of his criminal charge. Inmates accused of sex crimes typically are housed separately.

The Bee attempted to speak to Hooker in jail Friday afternoon, but officials said he declined news media requests to be interviewed.

Hooker appeared in court without an attorney, so he was allowed to read the criminal complaint to himself. He told the judge his bail amount was too much for "something that happened 14 years ago. It seems like an extreme amount."

Zeff entered a not guilty plea on Hooker's behalf and scheduled a pretrial hearing Tuesday. The judge will review Hooker's bail amount then and determine whether to decrease it.

Monte Vista Chapel pastor Ken Van Vliet, who has acted as spokesman for the Hooker family, said Friday afternoon the family had no comment regarding Hooker's arrest. Hooker abandoned his wife and three children to move in with Powers.

Detectives initially began to investigate Hooker after Tammie Powers reported an inappropriate relationship between her daughter and Hooker.

Read more here: http://www.modbee.com/2012/04/06/214...#storylink=cpy

[Stewie]

Isn't there a statute of limitations, or does it not apply in these types of cases?

[MTG#10]

So some chick is claiming he did this to her 14 years ago? Why is she just now coming forward?

[Msmith]

This guy is in the Self-destruction mode.

[DJay23]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

I definitely agree in theory that you have to keep a distance, but I've always wondered about teachers' situations and how difficult it is over the course of a career. More so at the college level, but I guess at the upper high school level as well.

You're a teacher who teaches 3 courses, and there are 10 females in each course. You get to know them over the course of 16 weeks or so. Now multiply this by 3 semesters a year over the course of a 30-year teaching career.

You've now gotten the opportunity to meet and know almost 3,000 young women. If you ascribe to the theory that there's not just one woman in the world for every man and that (for example) 1 percent of women are good marriage material for you, the odds are pretty good that you'll see 30 women over the course of that career that you fall in love with during those 16 weeks. It doesn't seem infeasible that sparks could ignite.

The numbers are different for high school, but the theory's the same. I wonder how many high school teachers and college professors, if being completely honest, would tell you that they've had a crush on X number of students in their career, even if the majority never act on it.

In my grad school, two professors ended up marrying students in my class, plus or minus a year. It was minorly scandalous, particularly since one of them had been married, but life went on for them.

cdcox, what say you?

The guy I took over for when I got my teaching job married one of his former students...middle school students. I had found a letter when I was cleaning out his desk drawers (he retired suddenly due to health issues before I got the job) from her concerning his divorce from his first wife and how she had always been fond of him. I'm certain everything was legal and their contact was well after she got out of high school because people would have said something if there was inappropriateness. The concensus was that he was pretty creepy. A colleague of mine had him as a teacher when she went to school there and she told me once that the girls all wore skirts or low cut shirts on test days so they would get a good grade.