A former teacher was filmed learning she would not receive prison time after she admitted to having sexual relations with a student.
Christine Knudsen, 46, was instead hit with a three-year suspended sentence for her sordid sexual relationship with a then 17-year-old girl for several months in 2017 and 2018.
Heard sniffling while being reprimanded for her behavior, Knudsen was also told by a New Jersey judge that she will now be on parole for the rest of her life.
The ex-graphic arts teacher at Fair Lawn High School will also be required to register as a sex offender, and has been forbidden to have any contact with the victim.
In return for a guilty plea, prosecutors asked the second-degree crime be sentenced as a third-degree, and with the suspended sentence, Knudsen will only be sent to prison should she violate her parole.
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New Jersey’s Christine Knudsen, 46, was hit with a three-year suspended sentence Wednesday for her sordid sexual relationship – with a then 17-year-old female student in September 2018
The ex-graphic arts teacher at Fair Lawn High School will also be required to register as a sex offender, and has been forbidden to have any contact with the victim
A violation would see the teacher, who was also forced to hand in her Garden sate teaching certificate, serve the aforementioned three years, prosecutors in Bergen County said – plus whatever time was imposed for the initial violation.
‘You are hereby sentenced to three years in New Jersey State Prison to be suspended,’ said state Superior Court Judge Nina Remson, six months after Knudsen pleaded guilty to the illegal sexual relationship.
‘You are also sentenced to comply with registration requirements of Megan’s Law and parole supervision for life,’ the jurist continued, citing US laws that will require Knudsen to register as a sex offender for the foreseeable future.
‘I’m going to give you a document that indicates where you’ll be reporting to parole,’ Remson added.
‘I’m also going to execute the Nicole’s Law restraining order, and you’ll be given a copy of that in just a moment as well.’
Donning a face mask for the proceedings, Knudsen could be heard sniffling during the judge’s statement, which referenced another federal law that forbids her to have any contact with the victim, who is now at least 22.
‘You are to have no contact with the victim, whose initials are NK – of course you know who that is,’ reiterated Remson, in a spiel that would eventually see her cut the disgraced educator some slack.
‘You’re barred from her residence, school, place of employment, [and] you’re prohibited from having any oral, written, personal, telephonic, electronic or any other form of contact with her,’ she went on.
Sniffling while being rebuked for her behavior, Knudsen was also told by a New jersey judge that she will now be under parole supervision for the rest of her life, after handing in her license to teach
‘You are hereby sentenced to three years in New Jersey State Prison to be suspended,’ said state Superior Court Judge Nina Remson, before seemingly cutting the convicted sex offender some slack and reiterating that the Garden State’s age of consent is actually 17
‘And you’re prohibited for making or causing anyone to make any harassing communications with the victim, from stalking, from threatening the victim.
‘Do you understand that?’ she asked – to which Knudsen, seated next to her attorney, replied, ‘Yes, Your Honor.’
‘You’ve already surrendered you’re teaching certificate, which is ordered as part of this sentence,’ added Remson, before calling the hearing – and case – to a close.
However, she first referenced allegations that suggested the educator consumed controlled substances with the student, whom she fessed up becoming acquainted with while heading a drama club the girl was apart of.
Prosecutors did not publicly release more information about the drugs or what they were, but accused the graphic arts teacher of ‘providing and ingesting [the] controlled dangerous substances with the student.’
‘I’m also going to have you a have a task evaluation, which is to assess whether you need any treatment for substance abuse, given what I’ve seen in the sentence report,’ said Remson during the sentencing.
‘I don’t know if that’s an issue presently, but it was referred to in the report that there was some past conduct that was troubling in that regard.
‘So, if there’s any treatment recommended, you are to comply with that treatment.’
The relationship happened between January 13 and November 11, 2017. Knudsen admitted, after she had been a teacher at the school for 21 years and was assigned to head the drama club, where she became acquainted with the student who was later in one of her classes
Remson would go on to concede that the relationship would have technically been legal, if it it had not occurred in a school setting between an instructor and student.
That’s because the victim was 17 at the time, and of the age of consent in the Garden State is 17.
That said, given the context of Knudsen’s crimes and her position of power over the teen, the victim was considered a child for the admitted sex offender’s sentencing.
‘Parents send their kids to school every day, trusting they will be safe in the care of their teachers,’ Remson said.
‘And there is a very strong need to deter not only Ms. Knudsen but all citizens from violations of the law, especially in this nature involving a breach of trust between the teacher and the student.’
The jurist added that children can be easily influenced, especially with someone older and in a position of authority as Knudsen had been.
She added that Knudsen – a staffer at the school for some 21 years before the scandal – that not only should she have ended the relationship when it began in the beginning of the 2017 school year, but it should not have begun at all.
“We do not understand there to be any allegations of current misconduct,” Fair Lawn Schools Superintendent Nicholas Norcia said in a letter to parents after Knudsen’s arrest in 2018. He has since resigned, after the circumstances of the relationship were revealed in a complaint
At Knudsen’s previous hearing in July, she told the court how she became acquainted with the teen between the months of January and November in 2017, when she was assigned to supervise a drama club the victim belonged to
She admitted how during that time period, the relationship between her and the student turned romantic and eventually sexual – a relationship Assistant Prosecutor Stephen Bollenbach called disturbing due its duration.
‘These allegations are disturbing,’ Bollenbach said of the monthslong arrangement, which fell apart after cops received a series of tips from unidentified onlookers.
‘The defendant not only engaged in criminal sexual activity with a student, she also violated the public trust through this behavior.’
On Wednesday, he called the plea deal “justice tempered with mercy,” and said he was happy the teacher’s sentencing required her to forfeit her teaching license, essentially ending her career.
‘So while this is certainly not a victimless crime — it’s far from it — I hope that Ms. Knudsen is forever deterred,’ Bollenbach said.
‘I think that is in the best interest of the community as a whole and certainly to the students.’
