The attorney for former high school English teacher Matthew Ellsworth, who will be sentenced Wednesday, July 11, for having sex with a 17-year-old student, argued in a court brief that Ellsworth deserves “mercy” because the circumstances were unusual.
“Put simply, (they) fell in love,” attorney Allan Caplan wrote. “Mr. Ellsworth is not a pedophile. He is a man who made a poor decision at a particularly difficult time in his life when his mother was dying of terminal cancer.”
Caplan noted that the young woman “does not consider herself to be a victim.”
Ellsworth, 36, was convicted Feb. 21 of criminal sexual conduct after a trial in front of Ramsey County District Judge Gary Bastian. He waived a jury trial.
Caplan asked Bastian to sentence Ellsworth’s crime as a gross misdemeanor rather than a felony.
The girl was a junior in Ellsworth’s English classes at Spectrum High School in Elk River in fall 2010 and spring 2011. During the summer of 2011, their relationship became romantic, both testified at trial. They had sex in his St. Paul apartment.
Ellsworth said he had planned not to return to Spectrum in the fall, when the girl would be a senior, though he did not resign. He argued at trial that because he was no longer the girl’s teacher and would never be again, he was not in a “position of authority,” one of the elements of the criminal offense.
The judge disagreed.
Spectrum fired him a day before the police came to Ellsworth’s apartment to investigate; they found him there with the girl. They were alerted by her parents, who found out about the relationship through her sister.
But according to a Nov. 14 letter sent to the state Department of Education in response to a request for information about Ellsworth, Spectrum Principal Vanessta Spark said a different incident precipitated his termination.
“In August 2011 a fellow employee accused him of cyber bullying of a personal nature,” Spark wrote to the department. “Outcome: In August 2011 Mr. Ellsworth was terminated.”
Spark also wrote that another student reported in December 2010 that “she felt uncomfortable” around Ellsworth. “She stated that he had complimented her hair and style and that she felt that he stands too close.” Ellsworth acknowledged making the compliments, and the student was removed from his class.
A police report detailed a conversation between Spark and an investigator.
“Spark stated that in August 2011 she had found an online blog that Ellsworth was maintaining wherein he was talking about another teacher in an unprofessional manner,” the investigator wrote. The blog was titled “Coming up Ellsworth.”
“She said the school’s lawyer had sent Ellsworth a letter directing him to remove the blog and any reference to Spectrum High School,” the police report said.
A call to Ellsworth’s attorney was not returned Tuesday.
Ellsworth’s teaching license “may be revoked” by Minnesota because of the conviction, according to the state Department of Education website.
At trial, Ellsworth testified that he tried to resist the “very forward” advances of the girl and wanted to wait until she was 18 before they had sex.
Caplan told the court in his brief that Ellsworth wrote a letter to the girl’s parents.
“(She) means the world to me. … I would do anything for her; I would give up my life if I had to. And when you think about it, I already have.”
After he was fired from Spectrum, Ellsworth taught English at Highview Middle School in New Brighton. He resigned in October 2011, shortly after he was charged with the crime.
Emily Gurnon can be reached at 651-228-5522. Follow her at twitter.com/emilygurnon.