PHOENIX — A former suburban Phoenix elementary school teacher avoided the maximum sentence Friday for sexually abusing a year-old student, including engaging in a sexual act in the presence of a second boy. Judge Sherry Stephens opted to sentence Brittany Ann Zamora to 20 years in prison instead of the 27 years prosecutors had asked for under a plea agreement.
Zamora will also be on lifetime probation upon her release and have to register as a sex offender. She has expressed her remorse. She has no prior criminal history," Stephens said. Authorities say Zamora had multiple sexual encounters with the year-old boy in a classroom at Las Brisas Academy in Goodyear and in her car during February and March Some physical contact between Zamora, who at the time was 27 years old, and the sixth-grader occurred during class while other students were watching a video, according to documents.
Investigators also say a second boy, age 11, had seen Zamora having sex with the year-old student. They say Zamora showed naked photos to both boys and asked them sexual questions.
Both children's families had asked the judge to deliver the harshest punishment possible. In a statement read by their attorney, the year-old's father and stepmother called Zamora a "twisted monster" who stole their son's innocence. His family also argued that Zamora would likely receive a stiffer sentence if she were a man who had committed the same crimes with a girl.
Zamora's defense attorney and family said the crimes were out of character for her. They cited her father's abandonment of her when she was 13 years old and ongoing issues with anxiety, depression and obsessive compulsive disorder as mitigating factors. Zamora could have faced 40 years in prison for her guilty pleas a month ago to sexual conduct with a minor, attempted child molestation and public sexual indecency.
