Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell has announced the indictment of Alyssa Paige Todd on six counts of sexual misconduct with a minor and one count of aggravated luring of a minor.
All counts are considered class two felonies, according to a press release from Mitchell’s office.
“It is extremely concerning to me that teachers, who are in a position of power and trust, are manipulating and taking advantage of students,” said Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell. “I commend our prosecutors and the Buckeye Police Department for their work in ensuring this defendant is held accountable.”
On March 16th, the Buckeye Police Department began investigating Todd after her husband discovered inappropriate images and messages involving a student.
After obtaining a search warrant for the defendant’s devices and conducting a forensic interview of the victim, Todd admitted to the months-long sexual relationship. On March 20th, Todd was arrested on sexual misconduct charges.
According to the indictment, Todd engaged in sexual intercourse or contact with the 15-year-old minor while Todd was in a position of trust, digitally, while in a car, while in an office and while at Skyline Park in Buckeye.
Todd also sent imagery through digital devices to the minor.
Her trial is currently scheduled for July.
According to the Buckeye police, this is the third arrest of a female sexual predator with ties to its local schools in less than a year.
Previous arrests
Todd was a teacher at the Odyssey Institute for Advanced International Studies.
Odyssey was a party to a previous inappropriate relationship between an adult female and a male minor. In September, a 42-year-old former teacher was arrested for sexual contact with a 17-year-old student at the school, according to the BPD.
According to Maricopa County investigators, detectives learned of the alleged abuse in the September arrest in late 2022. Jessica Kramer left OIAIS in October 2022 before becoming a Liberty School District intern, where she was later terminated upon learning of her arrest.
The Odyssey Institute for Advanced International Studies, a private high school in Buckeye, reported a tip in 2022 that then-teacher Kramer and an unidentified male student were in an inappropriate relationship.
A month later, Buckeye police arrested Diana Pirvu, 23, on child molestation charges.
Like Todd, Buckeye police were contacted by a family member of the victim who suspected inappropriate contact between the victim and Pirvu, an instructional assistant at Imagine Schools in Buckeye.
The Buckeye Police Special Victims Unit began investigating the allegations.
During the investigation, detectives reviewed communications between the victim and suspect and learned of several incidents of abuse that occurred off campus. Pirvu was detained in a traffic stop near her home in Buckeye and later interviewed by detectives.
In 2018, police arrested Liberty Elementary School District teacher Brittany Zamora after she was accused of sexually assaulting one of her 13-year-old male students.
According to police, the parents of the victim came forward with text messages they found on the boy's phone. Later, the Goodyear student told investigators the two had sex in her car and class several times.
Zamora was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2019 on multiple sexual assault charges.
According to a lawsuit filed by the victim's parents, a school official sat on evidence of the inappropriate relationship for a month. Which, according to the parents, if they acted swiftly enough, may have prevented the abuse.
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