Local News in Brief : Santa Ana : Ex-El Toro Teacher Sentenced to 6 Months
A former math teacher at El Toro High School was sentenced to six months in County Jail on Friday for unlawfully having sex with a 16-year-old student who pursued a relationship with him.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Kathleen O’Leary said Robert Webber took advantage of a troubled girl but the judge added this was not a molestation case and that both parties were willing.
“Had it not been for the victim this never would have happened but that does not excuse it,” O’Leary said. The judge recommended that Webber apply for a work-furlough program, allowing him to hold a job during the day and spend nights in jail.
Webber, 45, pleaded no contest in March to one felony count of unlawful intercourse with a minor and immediately after resigned from his post at El Toro High, where he had taught for 13 years.
Webber was originally charged in October with three felony molestation counts but prosecutors dropped two of the counts in exchange for the plea of no contest and a signed statement from Webber, confessing to sexual intercourse with a female younger than 18.
At the sentencing hearing the teen-ager testified that she was in love with her teacher and did not believe at the time that the affair was criminal.
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