Heather Hare later told the minor victim that she had a dream of them having sex and gave him her home address in Conway. The minor victim and Hare had sex approximately 20 to 30 times throughout the 2021-2022 school term, according to prosecutors.
An Arkansas teacher has admitted to engaging in sexual activity with a student during a school field trip to Washington, D.C., according to court records.
Heather Hare, 33, entered a guilty plea to a single count of transportation of a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity in a federal courtroom last month, according to a plea agreement obtained by Inside Edition Digital.
That agreement also states that the penalty for that charges is "not less than 10 years but not more than life imprisonment, a fine of $250,000, not less than five years supervised release and a $100 special assessment."
Hare will also be required to register as a sex offender, according to the agreement.
In the agreement, Hare admits that:
- "[She] knowingly transported the minor in interstate commerce;"
- "At the time of the transportation, that minor was less than 18 years old," and;
- "At the time of the transportation, [she] intended that the minor engage in unlawful sexual activity."
In exchange for her guilty plea, prosecutors agreed to drop the charge of coercing a minor to travel in interstate commerce to engage in illegal sexual activity, according to the agreement.
Hare was also charged with two counts of sexual assault in the first degree.
Those charges were filed in Saline County Circuit Court. Hare had been scheduled to enter a plea in that case on Monday.
That hearing was pushed back, however, after her lawyer filed a continuance and asked that the court wait until Hare is sentenced on federal charges before she appear in court on those charges, according to a motion obtained by Inside Edition Digital.
The judge has yet to set a date for Hare's federal sentencing, but her lawyer wrote in his motion that he "expects the federal sentencing to be scheduled within the upcoming weeks."
Hare met the victim, referred to as J.R. in court documents, while working as the Family Consumer Science teacher at Bryant High School, according to federal prosecutors. That school is located in the city of Bryant, which is approximately 20 miles southwest of Little Rock.
Hare started counseling the victim in one-on-one sessions after the two met on the first day of his senior year. She then communicated with him through Instagram and Snapchat before providing him with her personal phone number, according to prosecutors.
"Hare later told the minor victim that she had a dream of them having sex and gave him her home address in Conway," prosecutors wrote in a statement obtained by Inside Edition Digital. "The minor victim and Hare had sex approximately 20 to 30 times throughout the 2021-2022 school term, including multiple times at her Conway residence, in her vehicle, and in her classroom and parking lots at Bryant High School."
In April of that year, Hare chaperoned the school trip to Washington D.C. "During the field trip, which included four students, of which the minor victim was the only male student, Hare and the minor victim engaged in the unlawful sexual activity to which she pleaded guilty," prosecutors say in their statement.
A federal grand jury indicted Hare on Aug. 1, 2023, less than two weeks after J.R. contacted the Bryant Police Department and told authorities about the "inappropriate relationship" between the pair, according to a criminal summary obtained by Inside Edition Digital.
Two months later, on Oct. 2, the state filed charges against Hare, according to court records. Hare turned herself in on Aug. 3 and has been housed at the Grant County Detention Facility since her arrest.
Her lawyer did not respond to request for comment.
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