{"id":384923,"date":"2026-08-30T00:06:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T00:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/384923\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T00:06:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T00:06:14","slug":"florida-teacher-sex-with-17-year-old-at-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/384923\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida teacher sex with 17 year old at school"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Florida high school <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/04\/30\/us-news\/florida-teacher-admits-having-sex-with-underage-student-multiple-times-on-campus-sheriff\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">teacher <\/a>who had sex with a 17-year-old student on campus was sentenced to seven years in prison and 15 years of probation on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Heather Mashburn-Smith, 37, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to unlawful activity with a minor following her arrest in April, when authorities alleged she had sexual relations with the student on Port Charlotte High School\u2019s campus twice that month, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mysuncoast.com\/2026\/08\/28\/charlotte-county-teacher-arrested-charged-with-unlawful-sexual-activity-with-minor\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">according to ABC7<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:0.74517375;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"   data-modal-image=\"40575725\" width=\"386\" height=\"518\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/images-1.jpg\" alt=\"Mugshot of a woman with long light brown hair and a nose ring.\" class=\"wp-image-40575725\"\/>Heather Mashburn-Smith was sentenced to seven years in prison followed by 15 years of sex offender probation after pleading guilty in a case involving a student in Charlotte County, Fla. Charlotte County Sheriff&#8217;s Office<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat this woman has done is not just unlawful, it is damaging to the students and staff around her,\u201d Sheriff Bill Prummell said of the educator, who was suspended from her job at the high school.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis individual took advantage of that vulnerability and preyed on one of the people she was entrusted to protect,\u201d the statement continued.<\/p>\n<p>The age of consent in Florida is 18.<\/p>\n<p>After her arrest on April 29, Mashburn-Smith gave a \u201cfull, post-Miranda confession\u201d to authorities and was charged with unlawful activity with minors, enhanced to a first-degree felony because she\u2019s a teacher, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/ccsoblog.org\/2026\/04\/29\/port-charlotte-high-school-teacher-arrested-for-sex-with-student\/#:~:text=After%20providing%20a%20full%2C%20post,into%20the%20Charlotte%20County%20Jail.\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Charlotte County Sheriff\u2019s Office<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>She was granted 118 days of credit for time served before the sentence was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mysuncoast.com\/2026\/08\/28\/charlotte-county-teacher-arrested-charged-with-unlawful-sexual-activity-with-minor\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">imposed<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Charlotte County Sheriff\u2019s Office and Clerk\u2019s Office did not immediately respond to The Post\u2019s request for comment and regarding the final judgement.<\/p>\n<p>Charlotte County School District did not immediately respond to The Post\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Florida high school teacher who had sex with a 17-year-old student on campus was sentenced to seven&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6041,28,30,29,11454,12497,4030,4278],"class_list":["post-384923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-child-abuse","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-pedophiles","tag-sexual-abuse","tag-teachers","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384923","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=384923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}