A former special education teacher accused of having sex with students who was caught in a car with one of her alleged victims got an earful during a court appearance from a judge who asked her: “Honestly, what is going on here?”
Laura Calladio Ramos, who has resigned from her position at Central High School in Bridgeport, Connecticut, spent about an hour in jail Thursday after a frustrated Superior Court Judge Robert Devlin set her bond at $250,000, the Connecticut Post reports.
“Honestly, what is going on here?” Devlin asked Ramos during the hearing. “You were going to the beach with a boy who was a subject of your case. That is completely reckless.”
Ramos, 32, of Milford, was pulled over on June 22 in Waterford after a cop spotted her talking on a cellphone. Officers later determined that one of Ramos’ alleged victims in her pending sexual assault case was in the car with her, despite an order of protection barring her from having contact with the teen.
Ramos’ attorney, Edward Gavin, apologized to Devlin three times for the woman’s “lapse in judgment” as she stood beside him at the Fairfield County Courthouse.
“We acknowledge this is a severe violation of the court’s order and I have impressed upon her how serious it is,” Gavin told Devlin.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, told Devlin that Ramos has acknowledged she was in a sexual relationship with a student enrolled in her special education class.
The judge ordered Ramos to be confined to her home while not working as a waitress and to wear a GPS monitor ahead of her trial on two counts of second-degree sexual assault.
Authorities allege Ramos sexually assaulted an 18-year-old special education student between December 2016 and April 2017 and a second student on multiple occasions at a restaurant in Shelton, where a student told police they had sex in the eatery’s electrical room after Ramos told him her husband no longer wanted to be intimate with her.
The student told police he later received a text from Ramos saying it was the best sex she ever had.
Police said Ramos, whose husband recently divorced her and gained custody of their 2-year-old son, admitted after her arrest in a video-recorded statement that she had sex with the 18-year-old student a “handful of times” from December 2016 until April 2017, usually in her car.
Authorities believe Ramos, whose mother attended Thursday’s hearing, may have sexually assaulted other students as well.