She then gave a \u201cfull, post-Miranda confession\u201d to detectives and was charged with unlawful activity with minors, enhanced to a first-degree felony because she\u2019s a teacher, police said. The age of consent in Florida is 18.<\/p>\n
![\"Mugshot](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/heather-m-mashburn-smith-port-126697870.jpg\")
Florida high school teacher Heather Mashburn-Smith allegedly had sex with a student twice on campus. Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat this woman has done is not just unlawful, it is damaging to the students and staff around her,\u201d Charlotte County Sheriff Bill Prummell said of the teacher who was also suspended from her job at Port Charlotte High School.<\/p>\n
\u201cTeachers are meant to be people that students can trust and seek out for mentorship, guidance, and encouragement,\u201d the sheriff said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis individual took advantage of that vulnerability and preyed on one of the people she was entrusted to protect.\u201d <\/p>\n
Mashburn-Smith looked crestfallen in a mugshot that also showed her nose piercings. She was suspended from her position at Port Charlotte High School, Charlotte County Public Schools Superintendent Mark Vianello said in a stern statement.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe actions of this individual are a direct violation of the duty every educator owes to students and families,\u201d Vianello said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will not tolerate anything that compromises student safety. This individual has been placed on administrative leave as we work closely with law enforcement and pursue full accountability,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Mashburn-Smith was arrested and booked into the Charlotte County Jail, where she was still being processed as of Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Florida high school teacher has been charged with having sex with a 17-year-old student multiple times on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4864,265,28,30,29,12497,4030,4278],"class_list":["post-252449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-arrests","tag-crime","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-sexual-abuse","tag-teachers","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}