State police have arrested a 15-year-old boy who is accused of sending inappropriate emails from a teacher's account.
The mass emails went out from a Lyme-Old Lyme High School teacher's account on Sept. 7, according to state police, who have not identified the teen because of his age.
Troopers arrested him on Sep. 22 and he has been charged with fifth-degree computer crimes, second-degree harassment and breach of peace.
Families of students who received the emails said they were filled with sexually-explicit language.
"He had read all the emails, and he said, 'Mom, they were just so inappropriate.' I said, 'What did they say?' He said, 'I can't say it, mom. I can't say it,'" said Holly Cox, the mother of an 11-year-old boy who attends school in the Region 18 Lyme-Old Lyme Public Schools districts
Parents said the superintendent of schools sent out this email about the incident earlier this month:
Dear all,
This evening beginning at 8:32 p.m. someone accessed the e-mail account of one of our high school teachers and sent three highly inappropriate messages to our entire school community. These emails were not sent by the teacher whose account was used. Please be assured that this teacher, while upset by the situation, is safe. Our technology staff is on campus and is working through the night to stop the flow of emails and track the origin of the sender. Should you or your student receive one of these inappropriate emails, please delete it immediately. Do not reply to the e-mail. At this time, we have shut down all student network accounts to allow our technology team time to remove the inappropriate e-mails and subsequent responses from all student accounts. We expect to restore student account access some time late on Thursday. Staff will plan lessons accordingly. As always, our goal is to keep students safe and, in doing so, we will work with local law enforcement to determine the source of these e-mails and take appropriate action.
Sincerely,
Mr. Ian Neviaser
Superintendent of Schools
The district shut down the network, sent out an update to parents and talked to students the next day.
