Former high school teacher arrested and charged with rape of teenage boy
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ST. ANTHONY – A 36-year-old woman was arrested and charged after officers said she had sex with a teenage boy and provided him with alcohol and marijuana.
Jessica Lawson is charged with two counts of felony rape of a victim who is 16 or 17 years of age, felony delivery of a controlled substance, and misdemeanor dispensing alcohol to a minor.
Lawson was a South Fremont High School teacher from 2021 until 2023, according to Fremont County Joint School District #215. She is no longer listed on the school’s staff page.
According to court documents, on Nov. 6, an officer with the Saint Anthony Police Department initiated a traffic stop on a car for having no visible tail lights. The driver was a teenage boy, and the car was determined to be Lawson’s.
The teenager told the officer that Lawson had allowed him to drive her car “due to her being too drunk to drive,” according to police reports. Court documents say the minor admitted to having marijuana and was driven home by the officer.
Later that morning, the officer got a phone call from the minor’s parents, who said the boy had told them more information.
According to the parents, their son had been picked up by Lawson around 11 p.m. the night before and taken to her house in St. Anthony. The boy told his parents Lawson got drunk and he got high before the two had sex.
During a interview later with police, the boy said Lawson had given him marijuana while at her house and then the two had sex.
According to court documents, Lawson later called the teenager’s mother and admitted to picking him up from his house, taking him to her house and providing him with alcohol. She admitted to having marijuana in her house but said she did not give it to the boy.
She reportedly denied that “anything else had occurred.”
Lawson was arrested and booked into the Madison County Jail, where Fremont County female inmates are housed, with a bond of $250,000. A no-contact order was issued for the victim and further court hearings have yet to be scheduled.
If convicted, Lawson could face up to life in prison. Though she has been charged with these crimes, it does not necessarily mean she committed them. Everyone is presumed innocent until they are proven guilty.
Correction: A previous version of this story said Lawson was in the car with the teenage boy when he was pulled over. That was incorrect, and this story has been edited to include Lawson was not in the car at that time. EastIdahoNews.com apologizes for the error.