Utah Teacher Who Had Sex with Students and Tearfully Cited ‘Extreme Self-Esteem Issues’ Is Denied Parole
A former Utah teacher who pleaded guilty two years ago to sexual abuse after having sex with three underage students was denied parole Wednesday, PEOPLE confirms.
However, Brianne Altice — a former English teacher at Davis High School in Kaysville, Utah, and a mother-of-two — will get another shot at freedom in April of 2019, Greg Johnson, director of administrative services for the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole, tells PEOPLE.
Altice, 36, pleaded guilty to three counts of forcible sex abuse in April 2015. In exchange, 11 charges were dropped, including three first-degree felony rape charges, according to local reports.
She was sentenced to at least two years and up to 30 years in prison, reports The Salt Lake Tribune. Her current scheduled release date is 2045, Johnson says.
Altice was first arrested in October 2013 after one of her victims came forward to police.
In January, Altice went before the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole to ask for early release. As she discussed her past acts, Altice was occasionally in tears (as she was, repeatedly, during court appearances).
“I clearly lost sight of all my values and my principles and was seeking inappropriate means to address my own issues, issues I’m very aware of now,” she said during the hearing. “This was my doing. This was no one else’s fault but my own. This was not my ex-husband’s fault, or the school’s fault, or my students’ fault. These were my poor, poor decisions. I’m very aware of it and I am very remorseful. I regret the decisions I made that brought us here.”
During the parole hearing, Altice admitted to inappropriate sexual conduct with the victims, who were 16 and 17 at the time. She also acknowledged she’d had sex with one of them, a then 16-year-old student, in a church parking lot and during the school lunch hour.
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Altice also confessed to having sexual encounters with one victim, a 17-year-old boy, after she was arrested and out on bail.
“Did you grasp the gravity of the situation at this time?” asked Robert Yeates, the parole board’s vice-chairman.
“No, I do not believe I did,” Altice responded.
“I had extreme self-esteem issues, and they said things that made me feel good about myself,” she said. “I just started to justify everything. I wasn’t functioning in a healthy adult manner at all.”
Prosecutors said Altice’s crimes had a “really substantial impact” on her victims.
“I think it was the sentiment in the public that this was any boy’s dream to have a relationship with an older woman like a teacher, and I didn’t see it that way because she impacted the lives of all three of these boys,” Davis County Deputy District Attorney Cristina Ortega told PEOPLE in a previous interview.
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“I think she took advantage of each of the boys and what issues they may have had, whether it was their family or drugs or that sort of thing,” Ortega said. “I think she took advantage of that and she made their problems even worse. And on top of that, they had to deal with the public scrutiny of a lot of people saying, ‘You are not a victim because you are a boy.’ I think she layered on the impact with these boys.”
