Details of illicit encounters, Facebook page revealed as Destrehan teacher sex trial opens
By Michelle Hunter | The Times-Picayune | April 26, 2017
The fast and furious relationship between former Destrehan High School English teacher Shelley Dufresne, 34, and her then-16-year-old male student began with simple flirting, a prosecutor said as her trial began Tuesday (April 25) in Jefferson Parish.
But the relationship quickly advanced to multiple sexual encounters inside her Honda Pilot SUV at locations in St. Charles and Jefferson parishes over the course of a month in late summer of 2014, said Assistant District Attorney Rachel Africk.
The illicit relationship culminated with group sex involving another English teacher, Rachel Respess, 26, at a Kenner apartment, an encounter documented by the teen with a lewd video he later braggingly showed to a locker room full of fellow football players, Africk said.
The video is just one of the details revealed as Dufresne's trial on two counts of carnal knowledge of a juvenile got underway in a Jefferson Parish court. Dufresne has pleaded not guilty. She waived a jury trial, and the case is being heard by Judge Danyelle Taylor of the 24th Judicial District Court.
Dufresne's arrest on Oct. 1, 2014, the first of three Destrehan teacher sex scandals since, shocked the New Orleans area and made international headlines. During opening statements, Africk told the court the teen victim wasn't forced to have sex with Dufresne.
"He thought, as a 16-year-old boy, that this was his fantasy, and he thought that this was pretty awesome, and he bragged about it," she said. But she said authorities are not in court because of the boy's decisions.
"We're here today because of Ms. Dufresne's decisions," Africk said. "The carnal knowledge statute places the onus on the adult."
Dufresne's defense attorney Kim McElwee attacked what she called an abysmal investigation by the Kenner Police Department. While Dufresne admits having sex with the teen in St. Charles Parish, none of their encounters ever occurred in Jefferson Parish, McElwee said.
Dufresne takes responsibility for her actions but she is not a horrific sex offender, according to McElwee.
"The sex offender laws at one time meant you knew somebody really harmed a child, not somebody almost 17 years old that took part willingly," she said, noting the teen broke criminal laws and has not been punished.
Fake Facebook page: 'Madison Mexicano'
Africk told the court the teen was a student in Dufresne's 11th-grade English class and had been in Respess' class the year before. Though Africk named the boy in court, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune is not identifying him because he is the victim in the case and was a juvenile at the time of the alleged crime.
After the teen was checked out of school one day in August 2014, Dufresne sent him a personal Facebook message.
From there, prosecutors say Dufresne created a fake Facebook profile named "Madison Mexicano," with an image of the cartoon character Speedy Gonzalez as the profile photo. The cover photo for the profile included the phrase, "I love Mexican boys," a reference to the teen, who is Mexican, Africk said.
Dufresne began messaging him from the account Aug. 22, 2014, the first time the two had sex behind a daiquiri shop near a strip mall off Veterans Memorial Boulevard in Kenner, according to Lt. Clint Patterson, lieutenant commander of the St. Charles Parish Sheriff's Office Juvenile Investigations division.
Dufresne and the teen continued to communicate by text message and by Facebook messenger, the prosecutor said.
"Those messages leave very little to the imagination as to what happened between (the teen) and Ms. Dufresne," Africk said.
Dufresne and the teen had sex multiple times, after football practice and after football games, Africk said. They had sex at Dufresne's Montz home and in parking lots and empty lots in Destrehan and Jefferson Parish.
Patterson testified that he recovered condoms used and discarded by the teen in a parking lot behind apartments on Brandon Hall Drive in Destrehan and in a lot near Carriage Lane and Dunleith Drive, also in Destrehan. He also told the court he identified similar condoms at the spot of the alleged one Jefferson Parish encounter, but he did not collect them because they were found outside Kenner police jurisdiction.
Threesome: Sex with two teachers
Rumors about the relationship had spread around the school and seemed to come to a head on the night of Sept. 19, 2014, according to authorities. That's when Dufresne was out for drinks at The Sport Pub and Grill, 3001 Ormond Blvd., Destrehan, following a football game, Africk said.
The teen was also there with other students, including one who questioned the truth of the boy's boasts that he was having sex with a teacher. That led to a fight outside, according to Africk. After leaving the restaurant that night, Dufresne and the teen went to Respess' apartment in Kenner.
"(The teen) and Ms. Dufresne have sex repeatedly, and at some point, Ms. Respess joins in, and they have a threesome," Africk said.
After Respess passed out from drinking, the teen took a lewd video of her, Africk said. Though authorities never recovered the video, investigators interviewed several students who saw the video, she said, calling the teen's actions reprehensible.
Gossip surrounding Dufresne and the student spread afterwards, finally reaching the ears of school officials, who contacted the Sheriff's Office on Sept. 26, 2014, the prosecutor said.
Though also arrested by St. Charles investigators on a charge of carnal knowledge of a juvenile, Africk noted that Dufresne later pleaded guilty to a "reduced charge" of obscenity. However, the judge in the St. Charles case ordered Dufresne to give a factual basis of the case in which she admitted having sex with the teen.
Poor investigation
McElwee, who is defending Dufresne with attorney Jim Williams, said in court the Kenner police department did not properly investigate the allegations of sex in Jefferson Parish. Patterson later testified that Kenner police "cut and pasted" information received from St. Charles investigators for the Kenner arrest warrant obtained for Dufresne. Patterson then conducted most of the investigation.
Kenner police never interviewed the teen nor did they take him around to try and identify the places where he claimed to have had sex with Dufresne in Jefferson Parish, McElwee said. Kenner police also never went to Respess' apartment to collect any evidence.
The prosecution presented wrong dates in the case, according to McElwee. She pointed out that the teen told authorities he first had sex with Dufresne on the night of the Destrehan High School football Jamboree, which according to the school schedule, actually occurred Aug. 29, 2014, not Aug. 22.
St. Charles prosecutors charged Dufresne with having sex with the teen Aug. 22, 2014, in St. Charles.
"Now the Jefferson Parish district attorney's office wants to say, 'No, no, no... she had sex in Jefferson Parish on Aug. 22," McElwee said. "That's just out and out not true."
Dufresne admits having sex with the teen in St. Charles Parish, and McElwee suggested the student used that to threaten his teacher. When he got out of line one day in class and she corrected him, the teen sent Dufresne a photo, McElwee said, presumably an incriminating image.
"At any moment, I can expose this, and you can go to jail, and you'll lose your life as you know it," McElwee said the boy threatened.
The lewd video of Respess was revenge because he'd had a problem in her class the year before, according to McElwee.
"He told the cop he got payback," she said of the teen.
As for the group sex at Respess' apartment Sept. 19, 2014, McElwee said no sex occurred because the teen "couldn't get an erection."
"I do feel a little weird saying that in court," McElwee said. "But he said that in his statement."
McElwee suggested that although he was a juvenile, the teen committed crimes in Jefferson Parish by making the lewd video of Respess without her permission while she was asleep, and by showing it to his football teammates.
"There have absolutely been no consequences for his behavior," she said.
EDITOR’S NOTE: When will those hot-to-trot teachers ever learn that when they fuck one of their students, he is sure to brag about it to other students?
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