Heather Zeo Arrested For Having Sex With Underage Student (VIDEO)

Heather Zeo, a 36-year-old married mother of three who teaches at North Penn High School in Pennsylvania, was arrested for allegedly having sex with one of her underage students. The student described how the relationship escalated from Facebook flirtations to sexual intercourse during a courtroom appearance.

Prosecutors say that Zeo engaged in a "calculated seduction" and that they "will be asking for jail time."

Zeo is also accused of having an inappropriate relationship with another underage student. She is currently out on bail.

Read more details here.

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Watch the video report from CNN below.

Comments

[RobinSeattle]

Sorry, but this isn't a crime in my mind. The student was 17. He was getting off on banging his teacher. No harm, no foul from a criminal standpoint.

However, this is highly unethical and unseemly and if the school district wants to fire her and the state wants to pull her credential then I would be okay with that. But a prosecution here is a waste of time.

I feel sorry most of all, though, for her husband. He got cuckolded by a couple of minors. Yikes!

[Aabby]

WTHey Ladies, can’t cut it in adult relationships so you exploit children?

[minusjason]

Of course what she did was wrong.

But her lawyer is exactly right-- she's not on trial for the fact that "it's her job as a teacher to say no." If he really led her to believe he was over 18-- and if he's 17, 19 wouldn't be hard to pull off for a lot of guys-- then she didn't break the law.

Yeahyeah she should be fired etc. but the host and the prosecutor keep going back to "she's a teacher, she should have known better" which is not part of what she's charged with. Letting emotions get in the way of logic.

The only snag really is that as his teacher, she probably had ample access to his records, which would show his actual birthday. The prosecution should try to prove that she had seen his records.

[AmazingChicken]

Isn't this kind of coffee clatch of 'experts' more normally seen on Fox and [stalking] Friends?

[Okieborn]

I have to repeat with biteit !
Damn where were teachers like that when I was in the class room !!!
All of these commentators that are so put out with this, would probably not resist much themselves at 17 yrs. old !!

[dmyron]

The comments here are eye-opening--and i thought abortion was a hot-button issue.......

[daedelus]

Abortion is only a hot-button issue to people like this teacher.

[The Ghost]

You have a dangerous detachment from reality.

[getalong]

I'm very much anti-pedophilia, and that goes both ways (doesn't matter if the minor is female or male).

17 is tricky though.
This isn't exactly a kid we're dealing with.

Still... teachers shouldn't be seducing their students anyways... and I don't believe that she didn't know how old he was.

So, if you can prove it, then guilty I say.

P.S. Calculated seduction?
Sounds like a bad movie title.

[Palemoon]

More on this morals thing.

Just recently here on the H-Po, there was a famous swimsuits in movies themed pictorial as I recall. One of the pictures was from a famous/infamous high school themed movie, Fast Times At Ridgemont High. Phoebe Cates, who was obviously over 18 in real life, was portraying what in the movie? And what exactly was "Fast Times" about?

Why is it ok to glorify a movie like that? Going even further, with even more puritan laws on the books after this movie, and Animal House, having been made.... to all of the people offended at this, why are you not offended at these 2 movies, some of which portray sex with or between minors? Granted, Animal House, for it's time period, there was nothing wrong with. But in a day and age where it's uncool to drink beer before you're 21, to date rape people, etc, well, the movie is no longer "hip" it seems. Yet, it's still called a classic, a legend and still shown on national televsion. Odd.

[benji85]

Why are teachers of grade school student even allowed to be Facebook friends with students? I think it causes some kind of conflict of interest, or leads to this kind of stuff.

[MaxInAZ]

It's a bit of a sticky-wicket all right. I had my students send me friend requests, and it's very awkward to politely refuse them.

[Palemoon]

RTIII has a good when they said the following... "projecting ones morals onto others is _wrong"

I'd like to address some of that. If this young man who I presume is 17 by the way they talk, had instead joined the military and died in Iraq short of his 18th birthday, everyone here would be glorifying him. If he had been drinking a beer, or drinking and driving, he would have been destroyed in here from all of the commenters.

Most of all, if he had committed any kind of crime, the court of law would have seen fit to try him as an adult. Remember, Florida successfully charged, tried and convicted an 11 year old boy as an ADULT. So, if we're going to treat them like adults in the eyes of the law, we're going to have to start treating them as adults everywhere else. They should be allowed to die in war, smoke, drink beer, have sex, etc. What's the point of sending them to federal prison at 11 years old, if they're too young to legally drink?

Oh no, I'm not done yet, not by a long shot, more in next post...

[ubeman]

EQUAL TIME for EQUAL CRIME, ladies.

[Aabby]

i have to agree. she crossed a line bigtime.

[larry278]

Teachers pet & go farther, faster. It's called progressive education or a sex education lab.

[ZenJu]

Hysterical, paranoid American Puritans. When will you ever grow up? I'm certain your system will give the teacher a horrifying jail sentence, ruin her career and reputation beyond repair, and put the "victim" into deep therapy and counseling--just for being human. Sick. When I was 16, this would have been a dream come true. In fact, it was--and I live a happy, productive, creative life. Modern American society is all about victimisation and punishment and trying to force life into a cultural straitjacket based on outmoded Puritan standards. How sad.

[GeoLee]

As a retired teacher, I absolutely support jail time as part of a sentence for any sex offender, teacher or not.. However I have noticed lately that women teachers who are charged get 1. national publicity almost every time and 2. male teachers are rarely getting much more than local newspaper coverage and 3. the sentences for women seem to be much stiffer than those the men teachers are getting. In my state a woman how killed a baby got four times the prison sentence as a man recently did for a similar incident, but an offending female teacher got more time than the man who killed a baby. Something is very wrong about the sentencing in recent years. I often think of the fact that the female victim usually undergoes much more severe physical trauma and certainly are not looked upon as the heroes boys taht had sex with a female teacher seem to become to their peers....and many of you writing your posts today and sentencing should reflect that fact too. Equal sentences for equal crimes should b the model for similar offenses against children no matter the sex of the victim or the perpetrator..

[mykeru]

"3. the sentences for women seem to be much stiffer than those the men teachers are getting."

Are you joking?

[ywcachieve]

I think women and men who are put in charge of our chidren, should be screened and given psychological testing every year.

Having pedophiles in the classroom over our children has to end.

[Palemoon]

Well, it goes both ways. I'm sure that in alot of cases, the young teens are the actual predators. Seriously, think about it. I went to school with guys like that, who would get horny when the wind blows. If you think it's bad being a female teacher around young bucks like that, try being a female student the same age as them.

[matthewdsmith]

the dude was 17. i wouldn't exactly call her a pedophile.

[RedKnuckles]

the law says she is a pedophile if convicted...he was under 18.

[minusjason]

Yeah, of course we know legally that there's a lot of difference between 17 and 18, but I think folks on here are overestimating the innocence of a 17-year-old male...