A former high school student has claimed that she coerced a 50-year-old teacher into having sex with her when she was 17 after he was diagnosed with cancer. Scott Brady, now 54, is currently facing criminal sexual assault and aggravated sexual abuse charges for his past relationship with the woman.
But the woman has tried to take the blame for their sexual relationship, saying it was ‘more manipulation that anything on my part’.
The woman, now 20, said she knew Brady, who was a science teacher and soccer coach at North Boone High School, had been diagnosed with skin cancer. ‘I took advantage of what I knew,’ the woman told a Winnebago County courtroom on Tuesday. ‘I convinced him he was going to die.’
Brady allegedly had a sexual relationship with the student between December 2015 and December 12, 2016, according to the Rockford Register Star. The former teacher claims his relationship with the teen had only turned sexual after she moved in with him on December 15, 2016.
Brady said the woman’s father had disowned her and kicked her out of the house. ‘She came to me,’ he testified. ‘I told her she was welcome, I had a spare bedroom.’
Brady claimed the two became close after becoming roommates and eventually started having sex. But text messages seem to show that Brady and the girl’s relationship was serious – and intimate – before they moved in together.
The woman testified that she met Brady her sophomore year. She had played soccer and liked science class so she began texting him.
‘He told me not to do that,’ the former student claimed. ‘That was inappropriate’.
But the woman said they began texting more after she broke up with her boyfriend.
On July 3, 2016, Brady joked to the then-teen that they ‘go naked with red, white, and blue body paint’, seemingly in reference to the upcoming Fourth of July holiday.
The woman claimed that she had sex with Brady at least twice. She replied ‘I don’t know’ when prosecutors asked if the pair had sex more than four times.
In November 2016, the woman told investigators she had sex with Brady six times between July and October 2016. But now the woman claims she was ‘ambushed’ by detectives and ‘forced to say something’ at the time, she testified.
Brady’s wife Michelle discovered a note from the teen to her husband in March 2016. The following month he asked her for a divorce. They had been married for 22 years. Brady resigned from North Boone High School in December 2016.
Brady could face three years to life in prison if convicted. Closing arguments in the trial will begin on Thursday.