ANTELOPE VALLEY : Student, 15, Charged in Poisoning of Teacher

Prosecutors filed a felony charge Thursday against a 15-year-old Littlerock High School student accused of poisoning his English teacher by putting four to five drops of toxic cleaning fluid in her Diet Pepsi.

The boy, whose name was withheld because of his age, faces a single count of poisoning or adulterating a food or drink, authorities said. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of five years in a juvenile detention center and an additional three years if it is determined that the act caused the victim, Susan Ennis, great bodily harm.

The boy is scheduled to be arraigned today in Sylmar Juvenile Court, according to the district attorney’s office.

Ennis, 32, an English teacher, was rushed to the hospital last week after she took a drink of the soda laced with dry-eraser fluid, prompting her to become violently ill. She was discharged from Palmdale Hospital Medical Center Tuesday afternoon in stable condition.

Sheriff’s deputies arrested her alleged assailant after students overheard him boasting that he had placed cleaning fluid in the soda can as a joke, sheriff’s Sgt. Jerry Wolf said. The boy confessed to detectives during an interview that he had committed the act.