A disgraced Ohio teacher has been sentenced to two years in prison for having sex with her 17-year-old student in 2017, PEOPLE confirms.
Online records indicate Laura Bucy, 34, pleaded guilty in June to felony sexual battery, and was sentenced Wednesday.
Bucy, who resigned from her position as a home economics teacher in Twinsburg, Ohio, following her arrest in September 2018, had been facing five years behind bars. With good behavior, she could be released from custody after six months.
The Columbus Dispatch reports Bucy publicly apologized to the victim’s family, as well as own her family and her former colleagues, during her sentencing hearing Wednesday.
“They all deserve better and I’m sorry I allowed this to occur,” Bucy said through tears, according to the paper. “I do not believe this incident is a true reflection of who I am and will never let it happen again.”
Bucy was arrested in 2018 and confessed to police that she’d had sex with a male student once in the fall of 2017, soon after starting her job in Twinsburg. She also sent inappropriate text messages to the teen, and bought vaping products and marijuana for him.
At the time of her arrest, Bucy told police the 17-year-old student “looked and acted like her husband.”
As part of her sentence Wednesday, the paper reports Bucy was designated a sex offender, requiring her to report her address to authorities every three months for the remainder of her life.
Prior to her sentencing, Bucy heard from the boy’s parents, who urged the judge to send her to prison.
“You have seriously injured this boy,” the father of the teen said, according to the Dispatch. “We fear he will never be the same.”
The student’s father revealed Bucy told his son that he could never tell anyone about what happened, or she’d lose her job and her children. The boy’s mother told the court her son did not attend his senior prom, and has had trouble with dating ever since the illicit sexual encounter.
“He’s supposed to feel safe and protected at school — and you took that away from him,” she said.
A written statement from the victim was also read aloud in court.
“I pray you are never allowed to work with students,” the teen wrote. “No kid should ever have to go through this.”
