Former Bountiful teacher to stand trial on sex abuse charges

FARMINGTON — A former Bountiful teacher was ordered Friday to stand trial on charges that she had sex with one of her junior high students.

Second District Judge Jon Memmott ordered Valynne Bowers, 40, to stand trial on eight first-degree felonies: five counts of rape and three counts of forcible sodomy. She has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

During a preliminary hearing, a police officer read aloud a confession and letter of apology that Bowers wrote with detectives. Investigators had apparently encouraged her to write the letter, telling her that it might help her case.

"He came to me as a responsible adult," Bowers allegedly wrote in the letter. "I violated so much trust."

In the letter, Bowers said the boy approached her and spoke about several problems and issues he was struggling with.

"He was dealing with more than an adult can handle," she wrote. "I just tried to be a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on."

The boy, now 15, also testified in court Friday. Bowers sat across from him, occasionally looking up as he shyly answered with "yes" or "no" to the adult questions being asked.

Yes, he said, he looked at pornography. Yes, members of his music band — some 17 or 18 years old — talked with him about sex. Yes, his family, in particular his stepfather, talked openly about intercourse because "he just likes to joke about it," the boy said. And yes, before he and Bowers had sex for the first time, he told her that he thought she was a "pushover."

The boy also said he was the one who initiated sexual contact with his teacher. He went to her classroom after school, even though Bowers no longer was his teacher, and rummaged through her desk. Defense attorneys argued that was part of the boy's ploy to "soften" Bowers and to "pursue" her. He also sent Bowers text messages and taught her guitar lessons at her home.

"In some ways, you could argue that he was the teacher," said Bowers' defense attorney, Rich Gallegos. "When she comes home, she becomes just another adult."

Prosecutors, however, argued that as a teacher, Bowers was in a position of special trust and should never have engaged in sexual behavior with the child throughout January and February. That position of trust is why she was charged with first-degree felonies as opposed to lesser charges.

That she was no longer the boy's teacher, or that they were not on school grounds when the sex occurred, was of no consequence, said prosecutor Richard Larsen.