Ex-teacher in Portsmouth guilty of sex with student

PORTSMOUTH

After former Churchland High School teacher and football coach Cedric Cradle was found guilty of taking indecent liberties with a 16-year-old female student, jurors were told they could give him up to five years in prison.

They decided he should pay a $2,500 fine and not serve time.

The student testified that they had consensual sexual relations in June 2010 and on Feb. 14, 2011.

Cradle was found guilty of indecent liberties in connection with the Feb. 14, 2011, incident. The jury found him not guilty of a second count of indecent liberties as well as two misdemeanor charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Before jurors deliberated on the sentence, prosecutor Derek Colvin had asked them to think about the message they wanted to send about "a teacher who does something like this" to a student.

The Virginian-Pilot does not identify juvenile victims of crimes.

Reached later Thursday, the girl's father said he felt the message jurors sent was, "Do what you want and you get a slap on the wrist." The father, whose name is also being withheld to protect the victim's identity, said he felt Cradle should have served some time.

"I always understood if you are convicted of a felony, you're going to do some jail time even if it's a couple of months."

Cradle's lawyer, Carol Adler, argued to jurors that her client would never be able to teach or coach again. She said she did not think he was someone who needed jail time.

Adler had put family members and friends on the stand who talked about how he loved working with students and how many he had helped to get into college.

Jurors had the option of giving him one to five years in prison, up to 12 months in jail, a fine of up to $2,500, or a combination of jail time and a fine.

"We can't control the court systems," Portsmouth School Board Chairman James Bridgeford said when asked what he thought of the outcome. "We've just got to make sure No. 1, our students are protected and our staff."

Cradle was arrested after a security guard at Churchland High School saw the 16-year-old go out a back door with keys and get into the passenger seat of a vehicle in the faculty parking lot.

A few minutes later, she saw Cradle driving the car away and she alerted school officials, who began looking through footage of the school's surveillance cameras. They found the student and teacher were leaving from and returning to the school within minutes of each other.

Cradle testified that they talked in his car that day but that she did not leave with him.

Adler had asked jurors to acquit her client, saying the student was not credible.

The prosecutor told the jury that the student did not go to authorities. "She got caught," Colvin said.

At first she denied that anything had happened, he said.

Colvin said her testimony this week was corroborated by what the security guard saw, the school footage and the details she gave about Cradle's apartment and tattoos and branding on his body.

Cradle was the first of two teachers in the Portsmouth division charged with felonies involving inappropriate relations with students within months last year.

Last month, Marc A. Allmond, 30, a former algebra teacher and junior varsity football coach at Norcom High School, pleaded guilty to carnal knowledge of a minor and taking indecent liberties with a minor while in a supervisory relationship.  He faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and will be sentenced March 14.

Janie Bryant, 757-446-2453, janie.bryant@pilotonline.com