Charges dropped against teacher accused of sex offences

CTV Kitchener: Charges dropped against teacher A Cambridge teacher who had a sex-tinged Facebook chat with a student no longer faces criminal charges. Nicole Lampa reports.

Sonya Russell is no longer a teacher – but she isn't facing any criminal charges either.

Russell was taken out of the classroom at Preston High School in 2013, when accusations of sexual misconduct involving a then-16-year-old male student first surfaced.

Court documents show that she and the student began chatting via Facebook in March 2012.

The conversations initially related to alcohol consumption.

Within a few weeks, court documents show, they turned to comments the student perceived to be “flirtatious or sexual in nature.”

Those comments included references to a hot tub and a query as to whether the student was “more of a bathing suit guy or an au naturel guy.”

At one point, Russell said that if she knew the student when she was in high school, she would have “given my left booby for a chance with you.”

There was never any physical contact between the two, court heard – and Russell told the teen that she wouldn’t meet him socially until after he turned 19.

As a result, charges of sexual exploitation, invitation to sexual touching and child luring were all dropped Wednesday.

Rusell, 42, is no longer employed by the Waterloo Region District School Board.

She resigned from the Ontario College of Teachers earlier this month -- a decision she made on her own, according to her lawyer.

She is also barred from contacting the teenager in question, which her lawyer says is usual in these types of cases.