Former Brevard teacher takes plea deal

A former Brevard County teacher who admitted to having sex with a teenager was sentenced Thursday.

Janet Hughes entered a plea and was sentenced to 5 years in jail, 10 years probation with a gps monitoring device and will have to register as a sex offender. “What I'd like to do is apologize to everybody whose life has been affected by my actions. I know there is nothing I can do to change the past.”

With tears in her eyes Hughes pleaded to the judge for the shortest sentence possible saying she's suffered. “lost my career, I lost my marriage. I refuse to lose my children.”

In April of 2007 Hughes was a 32-year-old married mother of four and teacher at Jackson Middle School in Brevard County. Police caught her in a church parking lot in the back of her van with one of her 16-year-old 8th grade students.
T
Audio taken the day Hughes and her student got caught in the act reveals that Hughes is afraid she may have to take a polygraph test.

“All I know is you better pray your ass off that everything works out on this test or I'm dead meat…I have no idea what to tell my husband…We didn't have sex today. No not today...hahaha. We can say that.”

The prosecutor backed the statement up with scandalous emails between the pair. “My ear is hot from the phone where there are other things I wish it was hot from....My hands would rather be on your body that on this keyboard....”wrote Hughes.

While the defense argued the sex between the couple was consensual the judge didn't care. He could have given Hughes up to 6 years in prison according to the plea deal, instead he gave her 5. Hughes will also be labeled a sex offender for life.