A 28-year-old Ohio high school teacher pleaded guilty to having a sexual relationship with her 15-year-old student, whom she reportedly inundated with hundreds of phone calls and thousands of lurid texts.
Jamelah Daboubi, a former teacher at Horizon Science Academy in Columbus, pleaded guilty to gross sexual imposition and unlawful sexual conduct with a minor in Franklin County Common Pleas Court, WBNS reported Saturday based on court documents.
The 28-year-old was arrested in April last year after the boy’s aunt called police when she found the pair carrying on in the teacher’s car.
According to a statement by the Franklin County Prosecuting Attorney:
On April 2, 2025, police were called to the home of a woman on Salado Creek Drive in Columbus, who said she caught her 15-year-old nephew and one of his 10th grade teachers engaged in sexual contact in the teacher’s car. The nephew, whom the woman has guardianship over, admitted to police that he and his teacher had been having a relationship that involved kissing and touching.
An interview the next day revealed that the teen and his teacher had been texting for a couple of months and engaging in sexual activity for a period of time. Police obtained the boy’s phone and found hundreds of phone calls and thousands of texts between the two, including texts where the two professed their love for each other.
Shortly after her arrest, Daboubi was fired from her teaching position. The former teacher was scheduled to be sentenced in Franklin County Common Pleas Court on Friday, but the hearing was continued to an unnamed date.
“The amended charges of gross sexual imposition and unlawful sexual conduct with a minor carry a maximum sentence of 18 months in prison,” WBNS reported.
The court has recommended a sentence of “five years of community control, continued counseling, surrender of her teaching license and community service,” according to the outlet.
As part of her plea, Daboubi must also register as a sex offender.
According to research, leading criminologist and researchers say that “educator sexual misconduct” has become rampant in the U.S. during the past two decades.
Female teachers preying on boys from school districts both large and small typically produce weekly headlines, with tabloid coverage exploiting the salacious details of such relationships.
However, research shows that male educators are responsible for 89.1 percent of such educator sexual misconduct cases but that they largely go unreported.
Veteran crime writer Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times true crime best seller House of Secrets, which documents one of the worst cases of child sex abuse in U.S. history, and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
