{"id":351814,"date":"2026-07-25T01:29:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T01:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/351814\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T01:29:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T01:29:10","slug":"florida-high-school-teacher-accused-of-sex-with-15-year-old-student","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/351814\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida high school teacher accused of sex with 15-year-old student"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florida high school teacher accused of sex with 15-year-old student<\/p>\n

\"BrandonPOLK COUNTY, Fla. \u2014<\/p>\n

A Polk County high school teacher and coach who was arrested Thursday is accused of having sex with a 15-year-old student, according to the sheriff’s office.<\/p>\n

Otis Cutshaw, 55, of Winter Haven, faces charges of tampering with physical evidence, lewd molestation, offenses against students by authority figures, child pornography, use of a device to solicit sexual conduct with a minor, eight counts of possession of obscene material depicting a minor, seven counts of transmission of harmful material to a minor, five counts of unlawful use of a two-way communication device, five counts of traveling to meet a minor, and five counts of sexual battery by a custodial figure, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday on social media<\/a>. <\/p>\n

He has since been fired from his position at Winter Haven High School.<\/p>\n

The sheriff’s office began investigating Cutshaw \u2014 who taught and coached boys’ tennis at Winter Haven High School \u2014 on Wednesday, according to the post. <\/p>\n

When detectives made contact with the victim, she admitted that she had been in a sexual relationship with Cutshaw since classes ended in May and that they would communicate through messaging apps such as GroupMe, the post states. <\/p>\n

“According to the victim, the encounters occurred frequently at the beginning of summer and then daily during this past week,” the sheriff’s office said. <\/p>\n

Detectives going through the teen’s phone reported the messages appeared to have been deleted, yet they uncovered a substantial message history via forensic analysis, according to the post. Investigators allegedly found numerous explicit videos and photographs \u2014 all predominantly sexual in nature \u2014 including footage of Cutshaw exposing and touching himself, the post states. <\/p>\n

“During a phone call between the victim and Cutshaw, he told her that he deleted their chat history and that he needed to know what she had told law enforcement so that they could ‘match their stories,'” the sheriff’s office said. <\/p>\n

Detectives then made contact with Cutshaw, who allegedly admitted to traveling to the victim’s home and having sex with her on about five occasions while her parents were away, according to the post. <\/p>\n

“He also admitted to exchanging nude photos and videos, providing the victim with gifts, and deleting their chat history because he knew law enforcement was coming to his house. Cutshaw also stated that despite the circumstances, he remains optimistic that he will eventually be able to marry the 15-year-old victim. Cutshaw is married and has two kids of his own,” the post states. <\/p>\n

In a statement, Polk County Public Schools Superintendent Fred Heid said the district was disgusted to hear of Cutshaw’s arrest and the surrounding circumstances. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are terminating his employment, and he will have no further involvement with our students,” Heid said. “The school district will continue to cooperate fully with the Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office investigation, and we appreciate deputies moving so quickly to address this situation.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida high school teacher accused of sex with 15-year-old student POLK COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 A Polk County high…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[143877,143879,28175,7740,11578,28,30,143878,29,660,143876,4428,23588,4722,2631,7880,6411,21956],"class_list":["post-351814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-15-year-old-student","tag-chat-history","tag-contact","tag-count","tag-detective","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-high-school-teacher","tag-florida-news","tag-office","tag-otis-cutshaw","tag-phone","tag-post","tag-sex","tag-sheriff","tag-use","tag-victim","tag-winter-haven"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351814","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=351814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}