Married teachers guilty of having sex with student

Two married teachers in Huntington Beach, Calif., were convicted Thursday of having an unlawful sexual relationship with a 17-year-old high school student they repeatedly invited to their home for evenings of playing board games, watching movies and drinking alcohol.

Daniel Alma Shepard, 63, and his wife, Gay Davidson-Shepard, 60, pleaded guilty to multiple felony and misdemeanor charges related to the sexual relationship with a minor, according to a statement from the Orange County district attorney’s office.

Davidson-Shepard, a teacher at Mesa View Middle School in Huntington Beach at the time, was also charged with a misdemeanor count of violating a protective order, by calling and texting the youth numerous times while she was out on bail, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said Daniel Shepard met the student at Westminster High School, where he was a teacher. In March 2009, the couple began inviting the student to their Huntington Beach home, where they gave him food and alcohol, played board games and watched movies, prosecutors said.

The next month, prosecutors said, the couple got into their hot tub naked and encouraged the young man to join them. After getting out, Davidson-Shepard had oral sex with the student and her husband, prosecutors said.

After that, prosecutors said, on a weekly basis, the couple would get the 17-year-old intoxicated and engage in various sexual acts.

The youth told his mother of the relationship in March 2011, and she contacted the Westminster police. Shepard and Davidson-Shepard were arrested the next month.

Prosecutors said the couple are both expected to be sentenced to three years’ formal probation, counseling and 60 days of community service. Shepard was sentenced to two years in prison, and Davidson-Shepard was sentenced to four years, but those sentences were stayed pending the completion of probation, prosecutors said.

The Orange County district attorney’s office said it plans to formally object to the sentence.