The second degree rape case against a former Tipton High School teacher has been dismissed after witnesses failed to appear for a preliminary hearing.
Last April, Tipton Public Schools superintendent Shane Boothe contacted police and the Tillman County Sheriff's Office about concerns over an "inappopriate relationship" between a teacher and a student.
As a result of that investigation, Laura Cowan, 34, was arrested and charged with three counts of second degree rape involving two students.
Investigators say Cowan admitted to having sex with one student in her classroom and in her car, and that she also confessed to having sex with a second student at a motel and in her car. The students allegedly confirmed that they had sex with the teacher while they were students at Tipton High School.
Cowan was arrested in July and charged with the felony sex crimes in Tillman County District Court. However, at a preliminary hearing earlier this month, the witnesses failed to appear to testify against her, and the judge dismissed the case.
Although the case has been dismissed, Cowan isn't in the clear yet. Prosecutors can still re-file the charges against her.
In Oklahoma, it is considered rape for a teacher to have sex with a student in the same school system in which the teacher is employed. It is second degree rape, or statutory rape, for a teacher to have sex with a student, even if the student is older than the age of consent, even if the student willingly agrees to a sexual relationship (or even instigates it), and even if the student is not in the teacher's class.
Sex between a teacher and student is defined as rape in 21 O.S. § 1111:
"Rape is an act of sexual intercourse involving vaginal or anal penetration accomplished with a male or female who is not the spouse of the perpetrator . . . Where the victim is at least sixteen (16) years of age and is less than twenty (20) years of age and is a student, or under the legal custody or supervision of any public or private elementary or secondary school, junior high or high school, or public vocational school, and engages in sexual intercourse with a person who is eighteen (18) years of age or older and is an employee of the same school system."
Second degree rape is a felony punishable by one to 15 years in prison upon conviction. Although in most cases, statutory rape deals with seemingly consensual sex, it is classified in Oklahoma as a Level III sex offense--the same category as first degree rape and child molestation. Conviction mandates lifetime sex offender registration in accordance with the Oklahoma Sex Offender Registration Act.
