Like Taking Candy

It is plainly rotten to cheat, steal and con people. But it takes a special kind of ugly rottenness to con your friends, family and a bunch of schoolkids.

Ex-teacher pleads guilty in cancer fraud case

A former special education teacher pleaded guilty today to charges she bilked students, friends and her community out of thousands of dollars by falsely claiming she was being treated for a rare form of cancer, Bristol County District Attorney Paul F. Walsh Jr. said.

She told her students she was sick. She told everybody she needed money to buy food. She took their money and went to the Carribean where she used it to chug shots while she danced on a bar.

Prosecutors recommended 2.5 years of jail. That sounds fair to me. While you can't correct the fact that she's duped everyone, there is real value in a substantial punishment.

The kids had the wool pulled over their eyes. By accounts I have heard, she was a good special ed teacher. So, what has she taught these kids now? To be cynical whenever they meet up with someone in need? Certainly, it is a difficult world filled with people who deceive, and it is an important lesson to learn that not everyone is honest. But these kids have learned an incomplete lesson.

It's time for this teacher to step up to take her punishment and teach these kids that society cares when your actions are a thing of ugly. Then their parents can tell them that even though they were betrayed, consequences of lies do catch up with liars.

(And a mini-Thing of Ugly to the people who hav expressed that she should get a very light punishment because she didn't really hurt anyone. Bilking people out of 35K which might have helped actual people in need and lying to kids certainly is hurting others.)