A former elementary school teacher who gave birth to a child fathered by her underage ex-student has pleaded guilty to sexual misconduct charges — while her victim claimed he started the relationship and wanted her charges dropped.
Laura Caron, 36, of Cape May Court House, New Jersey, has pled guilty to second degree endangering the welfare of a child with sexual conduct, Cape May County Prosecutor Jeffrey H. Sutherland announced in a statement Friday.
Even under her plea agreement she could still face five years in prison when sentenced.
Caron first met the boy, born in 2005, when she taught him and his brother fifth grade at Middle Township Elementary School in Cape May Court House, according to the New York Post.
The teacher apparently became close with the teacher, allowing their two sons and daughter to sleep at her home several nights a week, according to Daily Mail.
Prosecutors alleged the teacher had “inappropriate sexual relations” with her former pupil when he was just 11 years old in 2016 and continued four years until he was 15.
The boy was 13 when Caron gave birth to a daughter in 2019.
Their secret remained buried for years, prosecutors said, until December 2024 when her victim’s father noticed a stark resemblance between Caron’s child, himself and his son in a Facebook photo.
“Then all hell broke loose,” the Post reported.
Investigators began discovering the details, including claims that the victim’s brother once witnessed Caron sexually assaulting his sleeping sibling. The boy’s sister also remembered falling asleep beside her brother but waking up to discover him in Caron’s bed.
The victim, now believed to be 21, has defended Caron and said he was the one who initiated the sexual relationship.
“They need to drop all charges. I wasn’t groomed or raped or manipulated by her. She never initiated anything,” he told the Mail. “I started everything. If it was up to me she wouldn’t have been in jail.”
Caron, a former basketball player at Pennsylvania’s Cabrini University, was charged on Jan. 15. 2025, with aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child, Sutherland announced at the time.
“Teachers hold a position of great trust, and the allegations in this case represent a deeply troubling breach of that trust,” Sutherland said in his announcement.
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Caron must also surrender her teaching license and all future public employment and is expected to be sentenced in January next year.
Even if the minor was not groomed as he claims, the case ads another twist to what researchers call an epidemic of “educator sexual misconduct” in the past two decades, as reported in an exclusive investigation by Breitbart News.
Leading social science investigators say a “culture of permissiveness” in school districts for teacher misconduct or telltale signs of inappropriate relationships with students, such as fraternization with a student after school hours, have led to what they call “rampant” sexual abuse in schools of every type.
They also say the internet and smart phones have contributed to the disturbing trend as it allows students and teachers to communicate through social media and secretly through text messages.
In September, Breitbart News also reported, that the Trump administration’s Department of Education (ED) announced a crackdown on school districts that enable such misconduct by failing to discipline teachers and transferring them to other schools or recommending them for jobs in other districts – a practice known as “passing the trash.”
The department has launched investigations into some 20 school districts it suspects of the practice.
“This epidemic of nationwide sexual abuse in our schools must end,” ED Secretary Linda MacMahon said in a letter to school districts across the U.S.
Breitbart contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times true crime best seller House of Secrets , which documents one of the worst cases of child sex abuse in U.S. history, and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
