The former Mount St. Mary Academy teacher and coach who received a suspended sentence for having sex with a student faces up to 30 years in prison after prosecutors alleged that she telephoned the teenager dozens of times despite agreeing to a court order not to have any contact as a condition of her sentence.
Kelly Ann O’Rourke, who now lives in Florida, made her first court appearance on Monday before Pulaski County Circuit Judge Barry Sims since the prosecutor’s accusations were filed July 29.
The 42-year-old O’Rourke, a Mount St. Mary’s graduate, agreed to and signed a no-contact order as part of her guilty plea to first-degree sexual assault in January.
The former volleyball coach tried to phone the student, who has since graduated and gone to college, a week after she began serving her four-month jail sentence, according to the petition. O’Rourke admitted last year to sexually abusing the woman, who is now 19, from January 2010, when she was 16, until she graduated in May 2011 at age 17.
“The ink was not dry on the rules [of her suspended sentence] when she was attempting to contact the victim,” Senior Deputy Prosecutor Terry Ball told the judge.
At Ball’s suggestion, the judge allowed O’Rourke to surrender her passport and sign an extradition waiver in lieu of posting bond or waiting for her revocation hearing in jail.Her attorney, Jack Lassiter, said O’Rourke, who was trained as a mechanical engineer, works as a project manager for a construction company in Florida.
O’Rourke could be sentenced to the maximum penalty, 30 years in prison, at the revocation hearing. Defendants facing revocation are not entitled to a jury trial, and the standard of proof prosecutors are required to show - guilty by a preponderance of the evidence - is lower than the burden of proof for a trial, which requires a showing of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
The judge set a Sept. 16 revocation hearing, which is the day before O’Rourke’s former domestic partner, Kathy Gene Griffin, is set to stand trial over accusations that she failed to inform authorities about O’Rourke’s sexual relationship with a student when it came to light in March 2012.
Griffin, 56, had been Mount St. Mary’s athletic director and also a coach, teacher, dean of discipline and counselor during her 27-year career there. She and O’Rourke were simultaneously fired by the school in March 2012 when administrators learned what was going on.
Griffin first stood trial on the misdemeanor failure-to-notify charge in January, but a jury could not reach a unanimous verdict, with jurors indicating they favored conviction on a lesser count.
O’Rourke testified at trial that Griffin had been her teacher but that they did not begin a romantic relationship until after O’Rourke had graduated from college. Griffin did not take the stand at the two day trial, but Principal Dianne Wolfe testified that Griffin told her she waited about two weeks to tell authorities about the relationship between O’Rourke and the former student “for the good of the school.”
Griffin denies any wrongdoing, arguing that she was not required under the law to report anything because the student was 18 years old by the time Griffin learned what had been going on. Griffin also has argued that since she eventually did report the allegations to the proper authorities, she has satisfied any legal obligation she might have had.
O’Rourke testified for prosecutors as part of an agreement that gave her a suspended sentence. That agreement also included a $5,000 fine, which court records indicate was paid last week, and a four-month jail sentence, of which she served about seven weeks, with early release for good-time credit. It was during that incarceration that authorities said they were able to document phone calls between the jail and the teen’s home.
O’Rourke also agreed not to have contact with the former student “in any manner,” according to the sentencing order, which the prosecutor said Monday was a “huge” condition of her suspended sentence. O’Rourke also had to register as a sex offender.
The revocation petition lists 52 phone calls purported to be from O’Rourke to three phone numbers during her 50 days in jail, with 24 calls, spread over eight days, going to the teen’s home. According to the filing, 13 of those calls connected, with calls lasting two to 15 minutes. The other 11 calls did not connect because they either went unanswered, got a busy signal or there were insufficient funds to complete the call. Jail inmates cannot receive phone calls, according to the petition.
On her final day in jail, O’Rourke called the teen’s home seven times in a 21-minute span, but got through only once, resulting in a phone call that lasted two minutes, the petition states.
The petition also includes a sworn statement from the former student’s father that states he listened to the phone calls, which were recorded by the jail, and recognizes the voices of both his daughter and O’Rourke, whom he has known for nine years.
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 08/13/2013