The defense attorney for a former Glen Burnie High School music teacher said that though his client admits to having sexual contact with two teenage girls, the Severn man is not a pedophile.
Jeffrey Stephen Thompson, 37, pleaded guilty Thursday morning in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court to child abuse, stemming from a two-year relationship ? from 2003 to 2005 ? with a 16-year-old student.
“It was not a situation of exploitation. There was genuine affection involved,” Thompson?s attorney Thomas Morrow said. However, Morrow admitted that this “affection” does not change the fact that a crime was committed.
“A child molester gets tarred with the same brush as those who have inappropriate, unlawful relationships with a minor,” Morrow said, adding that the law does not differentiate between the two.
Prosecutors acknowledged that Thompson and his victim believed they were in love.
The victim “had thought that she was the only one and that he loved her,” said Kristin Riggin, a spokeswoman for the Anne Arundel County State?s Attorney?s Office. “She had known it was wrong for a teacher to have sex with a student but ? felt they were in love.”
Riggin said when the victim, by that time in college, learned Thompson was involved with another teenage student, she came to understand she was victimized and went to police.
Court documents said Thompson and the victim often had sex in classrooms and storage closets at Glen Burnie High School, as well as in his Severn home and in local parks.
As for the other student, Morrow said Thompson would also plead guilty Monday to similar charges in Baltimore County. That case stems from an incident in August 2004 at a Towson University music camp where Thompson gave a 17-year-old girl vodka and then sexually abused her, according to investigators.
“He has agreed, in both counties, to accept responsibility for committing a crime,” Morrow said.
Thompson will be sentenced in the Anne Arundel County case on May 15. He faces up to 15 years in prison.
Thompson taught music at Meade Middle School from 1997 to 1998, and later at Meade High School until 1999. He then moved to Glen Burnie High School, where he worked until his resignation this July.
