A former Spanish teacher at Capital High School was sentenced Tuesday to spend two years on probation for providing alcohol to a student.
Michelle Elaine Ball, 31, of St. Albans, had been accused of having a sexual relationship with her teenage student, but made a deal with prosecutors in October that allowed her to admit only to contributing to the delinquency of a minor. She had also been indicted on a charge of sexual abuse by a parent, guardian, custodian or person in a position of trust.
Ball could have faced up to a year in jail for the misdemeanor delinquency charge, but Kanawha Circuit Judge James Stucky sentenced her to two years of supervised probation.
Police originally filed a first-degree sexual abuse charge against Ball. Assistant Kanawha prosecutor Zoe Shavers has said that never should have been filed as the student involved was over the age of 16 -- the age West Virginia law requires to give consent.
Prosecutors offered Ball the deal after meeting with her former student and his mother. Although he is an adult now, the prosecutor wanted his mother to also be consulted since he was a minor at the time of the incident. The two agreed with the deal,
Shavers said after Ball's plea hearing that prosecutors planned to forward information about the case to the agency that issues teacher's licenses in the state. Ball no longer works for the Kanawha school system.