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Married Former High School Choir Director Accused Of Raping Teen Allegedly Claimed He Was Old Enough To Consent
Greg Simms, an attorney for former high school choir director Haley Reed, said that the charges against her are unconstitutional.
A year after a married former high school choir director was arrested for allegedly having sex with one of her students, her lawyer is now claiming that the sex was consentual.
Haley Reed, 38, was a choir director at Oldham County High School in Buckner, Kentucky when she was arrested in June 2018 for allegedly having sex with a student eight times.
All the alleged incidents with the teen, who was 17 at the time, took place on school property, WLKY in Louisville, Kentucky reported last year. Reed was charged with multiple accounts of third-degree rape, third-degree sodomy and first-degree unlawful transaction with a minor and has since been released on $25,000 bond.
Now, Reed’s lawyer is claiming that the charges against her are unconstitutional.
“What we want is conformity, uniformity of the law and we want the judge that’s handling this case, obviously, to strike that portion of the law and declare it to be unconstitutional – because it is,” attorney Greg Simms told WHAS11 in Louisville.
He argues that under Kentucky state law, someone who is over the age of 16, like his client’s alleged victim, can consent. However, the lawyer did note that another statute claims that person in a position of authority or special trust who has sex with someone under 18 is automatically guilty of rape in the third degree. He finds issue with this, calling the two laws contradictory.
“There's the big hole that we're trying to fix," Simms told WHAS11, stating that if his client was a teacher at a different school and had sex with the victim, that would be considered legal.
Following Reed’s arrest last year, Oldham County School announced that she would have no more contact with students for the remainder of the year, WDRB reported. It’s not clear if she’s still technically employed. She was reportedly married at the time of the alleged sexual encounters with the student.
Reed is potentially facing more than a century behind bars if convicted on all charges, according to WHAS11.
"You can kill someone in Kentucky and get substantially less time than what we are talking about," Simms said.
The former choir director’s trial is scheduled to start in November.
