A former Mount St. Mary Academy teacher and coach who sexually abused an underage student then disobeyed a court order against contacting her was sentenced to 10 years in prison Monday, three days after the victim turned 20.
Kelly Ann O’Rourke had appealed for leniency from Pulaski County Circuit Judge Barry Sims and apologized for breaking the no-contact order imposed as part of her pleading guilty in January to first-degree sexual assault, a Class A felony.
Reading from a prepared statement, O’Rourke, who is now a registered sex offender, said she is “remorseful and ashamed” for violating the order.
“The stigma and shame will follow me for the rest of my life,” she told the judge.
But Sims described the phone calls O’Rourke made from jail to the ex-student - which prosecutors said began as soon as O’Rourke had access to a telephone - as both “very discomforting” to hear and “disrespectful” to the court order.
The judge said authorities documented 54 calls from O’Rourke to the former student made while O’Rourke was serving her four-month jail sentence. Court records show the calls were made between Feb. 1 and March 15, although not all of them went through.
The judge said he had listened to several of the recorded phone conversations.
Quoting a phone call O’Rourke made three days before being released from jail - in which she told the ex-student “I want you in my life … as my girlfriend” - Sims told O’Rourke that he believed she never intended to abide by the order, despite her promise to adhere to it when she entered her plea, and thus he had to rule harshly.
With the 10-year sentence, O’Rourke, 42, will be eligible for parole after serving 2½ years in prison; Sims also dis-solved the no-contact order. O’Rourke’s attorney, Jack Lassiter, suggested a suspended sentence, while senior deputy prosecutor Terry Ball asked for 15 years to be followed by a 15-year suspended sentence for O’Rourke’s deliberate disobedience.
“This wasn’t any misunderstanding about what the court ordered her to do,” Ball told the judge. “As soon as it was possible for her to break the court’s order, she did so.”
Prosecutors said the former student was sexually abused from January 2010, when she was 16, until she graduated from the all-girls school in May 2011 at age 17. The abuse came to light in March 2012, when school athletics director Kathy Gene Griffin, O’Rourke’s former romantic partner, informed the school’s principal.
Both women were fired, and Griffin was convicted last month of a misdemeanor and sentenced to probation for failing to promptly report the abuse to authorities. Griffin denied she had a legal obligation to inform police because the former student was 18 when the abuse was disclosed. Prosecutors said Griffin only reported to authorities because the ex-student’s parents warned that the abuse was going to be disclosed in the former student’s counseling sessions.
O’Rourke was initially sentenced to a 15-year suspended sentence with conditions that included her testifying against Griffin, which she did twice, and having no contact with the former student.
In a letter to the judge last month, the former student, who did not attend Monday’s hearing, asked for leniency, stating that O’Rourke broke off communication with her once she was released from jail.
“She was scared and vulnerable, as was I. She had never been to jail and was not in the right mind. She was worried about me. Before all of this happened, I told her I would hurt myself or kill myself is she ever went to jail,” the handwritten letter states. “The first thing she asked me was if I was okay. The last conversation we had was her telling me that she couldn’t do this anymore and we had to stop talking because it was wrong. She told me that she wanted me to move on with my life. So please give her another chance, I can’t live with myself knowing she’s locked up for a mistake … that I was involved in.”
A friend of O’Rourke’s for almost 20 years - her current employer in Florida, where O’Rourke has relocated - also appealed to the judge for leniency, testifying that O’Rourke has become an integral part of his engineering firm and his wife’s cake-decorating business. He said they had worked at the ETC Engineers of Little Rock for at least six years before she left the firm to work at the all-girls school.
Hamid Joodi, a married father of one, said O’Rourke has lived with his family since July 2012. He flew from his Santa Rosa home at his own expense to appear on O’Rourke’s behalf, he testified. He said she would be able to instantly return to her job as a project manager.
“The [engineering] company’s hurting right now,” Joodi told the judge, describing her as bright, hardworking and capable. “We honestly need her.”
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 10/29/2013