Willits teacher admits sex with student

<p>A 38-year-old Willits charter school teacher pleaded guilty Tuesday to having sex with a 15-year-old student.</p><p>Clinton Douglas Smith faces up to four years in prison on one felony count of having unlawful sex with a minor under the age of 16, said Mendocino County Deputy District Attorney Dan McConnell.</p><p>Smith originally had been charged with having unlawful sex, lewd acts on a child, sexual penetration and oral copulation of a child under the age of 16.</p><p>His guilty plea does not automatically require that Smith register as a sex offender, but the judge could impose that requirement during sentencing, scheduled for July 14, McConnell said.</p><p>Smith’s job as a math and science teacher at Willits Charter School was terminated Tuesday following his guilty plea, said school director Sally Rulison. He had been on unpaid administrative leave since his arrest in early February.</p><p>The teen-ager’s mother said she agreed to the plea agreement because she didn’t want her daughter, now 16, to be forced to testify.</p><p>“She was going to be a hostile witness,” said Kristin Dooley. “She doesn’t feel like a victim. She feels like a martyr.”</p><p>Dooley said her daughter, an A student, believed she and Smith were in love and that Smith was going to leave his wife for her.</p><p>Dooley said she’s outraged and disgusted about what happened. “This was her first sexual experience. He’s older than me,” she said.</p><p>Dooley said Smith has a daughter who is her daughter’s age, adding that the two had been friends.</p><p>“It’s gross,” Dooley said.</p><p>The first physical contact — touching and kissing — occurred while on a hike during a school field trip to Yosemite last June, she said.</p><p>“I was a chaperone,” Dooley said.</p><p>According to police reports, Smith and the girl had sexual intercourse for the first time in September in the garage of his Brooktrails home. They also had sexual encounters in his Toyota sports utility vehicle while parked in a bank parking lot, according to police reports.</p><p>The girl told police Smith took Viagra before sex in order to get an erection, according to police reports. The two also engaged in cyber sex, viewing each other on a computer webcam, she told police.</p><p>The girl confided the affair to several friends, according to police reports. They told police the girl said she’d initiated having sex with Smith.</p><p>She also told them Smith had told her he loved her. The girl told police they’d often discussed breaking up because the affair was wrong and he was “old.”</p><p>Smith could not be reached for comment.</p>