San Francisco- A 33-year-old Peninsula school teacher pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges that she had sex with a teenage student who authorities say is the father of her child.
Rebecca Ann Boicelli made her first appearance in San Mateo County Superior Court after being arrested Jan. 20 on one count of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor and three counts of lewd acts with a minor.
Boicelli, who faces up to five years in prison, remains in jail in lieu of $500,000 bail after her request for supervised release was denied by Judge Mark Forcum.
Investigators allege Boicelli met the unidentified boy in 2001, when he was 14 and an eighth-grader at the Opportunity School in Redwood City, where Boicelli was his teacher. In 2002, police received a report from a Juvenile Court counselor who told authorities the boy had made a comment that led the counselor to believe he was in a relationship with his teacher, said Redwood City police Capt. Ron Matuszak.
Police interviewed the boy and Boicelli at the time but closed the investigation after both denied having a relationship. Investigators reopened the case in March 2004, after a teacher at Roy Cloud Elementary School, where Boicelli then worked, reported an encounter between Boicelli and the boy, who was not a student at the school, Matuszak said.
The Roy Cloud teacher “said she had a conversation with a janitor who walked in on the couple after hours in the classroom,” Matuszak said. “They weren’t touching each other, but it certainly raised suspicions.”
Authorities were still investigating in June 2004, when Boicelli gave birth to a son. Police served warrants to obtain DNA samples from Boicelli, her baby and the victim, in an effort to establish the father of the child. The DNA test revealed last month that the boy was the father of the baby, said Matuszak. The boy, now 18, was 16 at the time of conception.
When police went to arrest Boicelli last week, they discovered she was working as an eighth-grade teacher at the Ravenswood City School District in East Palo Alto.
“It’s a serious offense,” said Matuszak. “The fact is even despite the age, she was a teacher, and that compounds the issue. A teacher is in a position of authority and of trust. I think every parent has the expectation that their child will not be subjected to sexual advances or contact by a schoolteacher.”
The baby is in the custody of Boicelli’s parents, authorities said.
In court Thursday, Boicelli’s attorney argued that she had no criminal history, was neither a threat nor a flight risk and deserved to receive a supervised release or reduced bail. The attorney, Terry Bowman, told Judge Forcum that the victim was mature for his age, and she says he insists he was not victimized.
“The victim is now 18 years old and specifically told the interviewing detective that he was not taken advantage of, and did not feel he was used or mistreated,” Bowman said.
In a motion filed to the court, Bowman also alleged that the only sexual contact that took place had occurred once in Nevada and that the three counts of lewd conduct referred to kissing between Boicelli and the boy.
But Forcum was unmoved, saying Boicelli had chosen to start a relationship with the victim, and in doing so, robbed him of a normal life. He also signed a protective order, preventing Boicelli from seeing the victim.
“I view these offenses as extremely serious,” Forcum said. “As I said before, the victim was highly vulnerable given his age. … There was a violation of trust. We hold a lot of faith in schoolteachers to do the right thing for the children in this community, and obviously (Boicelli) didn’t.”
Boicelli returns to court March 1.