English Teacher Who Had Sex With Students Is Jailed; She’d Reportedly Enticed Them With The Pickup Line, ‘All The Candy You Need Is Right Here’
Sep. 28 2014, Published 4:29 p.m. ET
Lauren Harrington-Cooper, a Pennsylvania teacher who had sex with two students, enticed the boys with a sick pickup line, investigators claimed.
She allegedly told them, “All the candy you need is right here.”’
Harrington-Cooper, a married English teacher, was sentenced to nine to 23 months in jail this week, according to the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader newspaper, after she pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual contact with students and two counts of corrupting minors.
She confessed to having sex with two males aged 17 and 18. The younger student she had met while teaching in the Wyoming Valley West School district in Pennsylvania. Harrington-Cooper reportedly performed oral sex on him.
There were four total victims, Assistant District Attorney Jenny Roberts said.
“The defendant was in a position of authority with these students and she took advantage of that,” Roberts said. “They're just happy to move on with their lives.”
School officials insisted the sexual contact didn’t take place on school grounds, but police said she made the remark about “all the candy you want” while in school.
Harrington-Cooper also taught classes at her husband’s dance academy, where she was photographed in a skimpy leotard.
When the former teacher was sentenced, Harrington-Cooper said nothing, but her attorney told the media she took responsibility and noted, “She’ll never be allowed to work with children again.
“She has been diagnosed with some significant psychological issues of inadequacy,” her legal eagle added. “Her self-esteem issues have really troubled her all of her life, and she found comfort and solace in some people giving her attention, as wrong as it was.”