Teacher Blames Weight Loss for Sex Crimes: Affidavit

we got another really disturbing one for you today a female teacher who allegedly targeted her students this time we have allegations of sending highly inappropriate messages to teens including about a stripper poll to another teen accusing her of molesting him we got our hands on these shockingly graphic affidavits in support of her arrest and serious charges as well as her so-called excuse for her alleged actions welcome to sidebar presented by law on crime I'm Jesse Weber and by the way I know that we have a lot of sponsors on this show and look we appreciate

you supporting them supporting us but I'll tell you what we'd actually really like to know from all of you our loyal sidebar audience the sians if you will a terrible name I got to Workshop that anyway we want to know what do you all like so we created a five question survey you can tell us what kind of Brands and products you use which would just be super helpful to us to make sure we put the right companies in front of you guys also if you fill out the survey is a thank you we're going

to randomly select five of you and send you free LA crime t-shirts so please fill out the survey at La crime.com survey it'll take less than 30 seconds and you could win free LA crime merch the woman at the center of This truly startling case is 31-year-old Britney Fortenberry a married mother who's a former teacher at two high schools in Indiana Eminence and Martinsville they're both South of Indianapolis but they're in different school districts now according to probable cause statements from Morgan County investigators Fortenberry was charged in November with two counts of dissemination of matter

harmful to a minor and harassment using a computer network for allegedly sending inappropriate messages on Instagram to at least two male students at Eminence high school but then last week she was charged again this time with three counts of sexual misconduct with a minor through intercourse dissemination of matter harmful to minors and contributing to the delinquency of a minor and included in the investigator's Affidavit of probable cause are allegations that Fortenberry showed off a stripper pole in a basement bedroom of her home sent videos displaying her extensive sex toy collection and told students about her

exclusive content on only fans in Snapchat and when police questioned her about her motives she reportedly told them that if she hadn't lost so much weight recently this never would have happened okay to go through this to go through these allegations I want to bring on right now Indiana trial attorney Ashley Hadler to talk more about it Ashley thanks so much for coming here on sidebar appreciate it yes thanks Jesse I appreciate you asking how serious are these charges that she's facing right now um what we know so far is that these are just incredible

incredible claims against her allegations and if they are true this is a very serious situation yeah I mean two backto back arrests uh obviously there's a little bit of time there but really Brazen claims it seems we're seeing more and more teenage boys and young men coming forward to report this kind of trauma I mean we've covered so many different uh episodes like this before this is a disturbing Trend that we're seeing do we ever see an underlying why uh why these things happen again these are allegations at these at this point but if these

allegations are true in your experience and your practice uh do you get an understanding of why we're seeing this um I I think from the documents I've reviewed here according to the the alleged perpetrator the why is that um you know we we have someone who has disclosed that she has some degree of trauma in her own past she also claims to have um a b borderline personality disorder and other underlying mental illnesses that may have contributed to this as well as um some self-esteem issues we we see in the probable cause affidavit that she

claims to have lost over a 100 pounds um regaining some of her sexuality maybe by the way imagine this for a second you help your little brother land a great job abroad but when he arrives that job doesn't exist instead he is trapped in a heavily guarded compound forced to sit at a computer and scam innocent victims while armed guards stand by was shoot to kill orders scam Factory the explosive new True Crime podcast from wondery exposes a multi-billion dollar criminal Empire operating in plain sight told through one family's hering account of sleepless nights desperate

phone calls dangerous rescue attempts scam Factory reveals a brutal truth the only way out is to scam their way out follow scam Factory on the wondery app or wherever you get your podcast you can binge all episodes of scam Factory early and AD free right Now by joining Wonder Plus or by going to our Link in the description and pinned in the comments let's uh let's get into this a little bit more so I want to talk about these two probable cause statements both were filed by detective Sergeant Patrick Williams of the Morgan County Sheriff's

department and according to Detective Williams statement to support the charges that were filed back in November two students told staff at Eminence high school that Fortenberry a new teacher had made sexual comments toward them and had been communicating with them on Instagram and the of 2024 now she reportedly resigned within a few short weeks of being hired but here's the thing the victims are not identified in the complaints all the names are redacted but here is what it says quote victim one says around the fourth day of school they were called down told there was

a new teacher at school had some things in her car needed help moving in and they were going to TA meaning a teaching teaching assistant for her n victim one said that the teacher introduced herself as Britney and that they could call her Miss B now this boy apparently told police things seemed pretty normal for the first week of school he helped Fortenberry set up her classroom grade papers you know things like that but it was when Fortenberry allegedly added him on Instagram purportedly to ask him about the schedule for the school's Cross Country meets

that's when things got a little odd the victim told the detective he thought it was kind of weird but sent her a link and from there he says Fortenberry started texting him quote how a friend would not necessarily how a teacher would and the victim told the detective that his buddy also helped out as a teacher's assistant in fortenberry's classroom during the free periods and he alleges that once Fortenberry learned that he was an adult she flirted almost exclusively with him according to the probable cause statement victim one said that she sent him a video

on Instagram he said she asked if he wanted to see her collection he said in the video she sent him it was going drawer after drawer of sex toys victim one said she would go one by one showing off what they were he said he didn't really understand what was going on and victim one said that he deleted his chat sat his phone down and said we're done with that now Ashley taking these allegations as true is this a common ruse you start by asking about something benign you build it up you know I always

it seems to me in a lot of the cases that we've covered once the teacher starts communicating with a student over text over social media that that's how it you know Begins the allegations absolutely I I think you hit the nail on the head this is a very common situation I would say the um the strange thing if anything about these incidents is how quickly she transitioned from appropriate to inappropriate conversation within days of first meeting these boys yeah because the court filing states that after Fortenberry sent him a sedu photo of her cleavage he

told her that he didn't understand why she had this attraction to him that he realizes that he's 18 and told her that this could ruin her job that he had a wonderful girlfriend that he had no problem being her ta and that she just needed to leave him alone but the victim reportedly told Fortenberry that he wouldn't report her as long as she stopped trying to communicate with him he claims she later sent him a link to a scholarship and attempt to reconnect with him quote victim once said he learned the next day within a

half hour of him telling her to stop talking to him that she started talking to his buddy now Ashley all of this allegedly happened in the span of one week in August of 2024 according to the probable cause statement um it talk to me about that progression but also I I have to say in a lot of the cases I've covered how much of a digital Trail do these defendants leave um unfortunately not as much as you would hope and not as much as you would expect and it's something um you know she was very

Savvy in this way she had operated communicating on a lot of different text platforms with adults and other children um we've learned and we we see that she also would turn on Vanishing mode so that her messages would be deleted immediately and then after um things came to light and after she was being investigated she deleted her account entirely which made it difficult to obtain much of the information that had existed at one time talk to me about that real quick I always assumed that even if someone deletes their account or deletes their messages that's

an that's able to be obtained through a subpoena to the social media companies I don't know if that's the same thing with the Snapchat where the messages disappear but am I wrong about that um on Instagram now if something is in vanish mode it is able to be retrieved for a period of time but there are certain time frames after which it's not and certain actions that the user can take in their account so that it's not available even via subpoena by law enforcement unfortunately interesting interesting well during the interview the detective asked the student

to go into further detail about the messages and the videos that foron Barry allegedly sent him on Instagram and he says that she sent him a photo of a bedroom with a stripper poll and said she used to be an exotic dancer and she also allegedly told them about her exclusive sexual content that she posted to only fans and Snapchat quote victim one said at one point she had told him over the last two years she had lost 100 PBS he said that she showed him a before and after picture and he praised her for

telling her that was hard to do victim one said that he never complimented her in a way that could have been a sexual comment though now the student told the detective that none of the images foron Barry allegedly sent him on Instagram were fully nuded but admitted she had left her phone on a desk in the empty classroom open to the photos app which was full of naked photos real quick Ashley is there any way at this point before we go any further you could say this is not dissemination this is not harassment based on

the statutes um you know personally I my opinion would be no I think this is someone who's very clearly boundary pushing um attempting to groom someone attempting to expose someone on to adult content so um you know whether or not it would meet the the burden NE necessary for a prosecutor to move forward I'm not sure but I think absolutely um it the possibility is there that it it should be pursued at that point so going back to this going back to Detective Williams he also did an interview with the second alleged victim who said

that Fortenberry had sent him similar photos and videos on Instagram and he claimed she sent videos of herself smoking weed in her garage and often talked about her hypersexualized past so deputies they served a warrant on fortenberry's home in nearby Martinsville and found the stripper pole they found apparently the drawers full of sex toys so in other words it corroborated the student stories but what did Fortenberry have to say about all this well she came in to do an interview and apparently told the detective that the Eminence High School administration had told her she was

having appropriate conversations with students according to Fortenberry her social media accounts had been sent out and spread around the school and she claims it was the students who approached her online not the other way around she said the school gave her an opportunity to resign to prevent the scandal from going public at a school board meeting so Fortenberry says she signed a resignation letter Ashley based on this alone any defense here I mean what do you make of that um my take on on her vers of the events was that she was providing the minimum

details that she needed to and waiting for the detective to volunteer additional information about how much they actually knew at that point it's interesting now I will say uh throughout her interview with Detective Williams it appears that Fortenberry seemed to go off on several strange tangents about her body that she was very proud of of the weight that she lost while according to Detective Williams statements in the probable cause document it reads I then asked Britney what's going through her mind when there's allegations of sexual stuff or sexual messages between students Britney says that she's

going to be honest with me that she regrets the day that she lost weight Britney continues saying that she doesn't think she would run into any of these issues if she was still 150 PBS heavier and she also apparently told a bizarre story about a mom asking her to leave a local pool because her body was distracting the affidavit reads Britney then says she has large breasts Britney continues saying the joke was that she was a blowup doll and no matter how she dressed people talked about the way she looked Britney said she didn't want

to do younger teaching because she doesn't have that kid voice Britney said she thought high school would be better Britney said she realized that all are going through puberty and she said that she showed kindness to those kids and people have problems with it so it seems again Ashley that I don't know if this is necessarily a legal defense more of trying to rational if these allegations are true trying to rationalize what happened here absolutely and that's something that you see with a lot of perpetrators who work in school systems and with kids um this

is a person who has reframed the narrative entirely so that she is the victim um you know because of the way she looked that she has been singled out and her actions have been misconstrued um but really you know she is a person who if if true these things that she's doing are highly highly inappropriate so any criticism would be very valid just to be clear from a legal point of view there is no way miners could have started this even if they were if you take her as true you know they reached out to

her they were going out there's no way that would work for her as a defense right it would not because even if a minor reached out to her added her on Snapchat started a conversation the moment she engages inappropriately the crime as charged had been committed so when the detective asked about fortenberry's Communications with the students online she apparently said she did talk to them on Instagram which she acknowledged was wrong but she said she only talked about scholarship information and she claimed that the boys would try to video call her but that she shut

that down Fortenberry told the detective that yes she does have a stripper pole it was featured in in her Instagram stories which could be seen by anyone on the app but she insisted she never sent videos of her sex toy collection saying that type of video would only be one of the platforms where she shared exclusive content and when the detective pointed out that what they found in her home matched exactly with what the alleged victim said they saw in the videos he wrote that Fortenberry really couldn't explain that so I couldn't tell Ashley whether

or not she was suggesting that these were just videos that were being accessed by students and that it wasn't her directly sending them but if that's true she really didn't have a great explanation for that I guess that's problematic for her yeah I in my opinion that was a moment when her story and the facade that she had worked to create fell apart a little bit um until then you know she had she had purposely set messages to Vanishing mode turned it off when she sent the scholarship information turned it back on after that um

so she was working while she she was having these inappropriate conversations to leave a trail that she wanted to leave if she were caught um and the video with the sex toys seemed to be a piece of the puzzle that she had not anticipated or or thought through so she didn't have a good answer in that interview so on November 6 as we were talking about charges were filed against Fortenberry two counts of dissemination of matter harmful to minors and harassment using a computer network Eminence Community Schools confirmed that Fort and Barry was a math

teacher for middle school students all the students kindergarten through 12th grade they were all on the same campus and the school district released a statement saying the night of August 22nd 2024 a report was made to the school corporation that an employee Britney Fortenberry had engaged an inappropriate conduct toward two students School administration immediately reported this information to the the Indiana Department of Child Services and local law enforcement the employee was immediately suspended the night of August 22nd 2024 pending investigation into the reported misconduct on or before 9:45 a.m. the following morning on August 23rd

2024 a resignation notice was received from Miss Fortenberry and her employment with the Eminence Community Schools immediately ended the welfare and safety of our students is the top priority of the Eminence Community Schools as such the school corporation has been and will continue to fully cooperate with law enforcement and the Morgan County prosecutor's office in this matter so Ashley two questions for you number one there is a little bit of time between August and the November charges why do you see that you know that I don't want to say delay I mean I guess there

was needed to be an investigation before you could bring charges you would tell me that and number two School District face any liability here as to the first absolutely you're right it takes time to investigate um there were a lot of things that the detective was following up on after the first interviews and like you mentioned um certain records have to be subpoena and obtaining that data from third parties like Snapchat or meta um T does take time and presumably the detective was gathering that sending that to the prosecutor's office and then the prosecutor's office

would need time to review and determine whether they would move forward um the as to the liability of the school district that is an a very interesting question I think that um had this been a standalone incident where the school did not have notice before about any of her behaviors um that then I would say potentially no but here we know that this was a person who did have a history of inappropriate Communications and actions with children it was well known in the community that is a very small Community here in Indiana um so in

my opinion yes I I think there should be a close look at what the school may have done or not done that contributed to allow the students to be to be injured here but here's the thing little did investigators know they would be dealing with even more egregious claims against Forton Berry very soon so now we're going to the probable cause statement for fortenberry's February 25 charges three counts of sexual misconduct with a minor through intercourse dissemination of matter harmful to minors and contributing to the delinquency of a minor so in December of 2024 Detective

Williams says he was at the Morgan County prosecutor's office on an unrelated case when all of a sudden a woman comes in asking to talk to somebody about Britney Fortenberry Williams says quote the individual was reporting that her grandson had disclosed to her sexual acts that happened between him and Britney approximately a year ago so these events reportedly took place in October 2023 when Fortenberry was a teacher at martville high school according to the grandmother statements her grandson herd Fortenberry had been jailed for the alleged Instagram messages with the students at Eminence high and he

eventually revealed that Fortenberry had allegedly molested him so the grandmother said that her grandson was quote given mushrooms from Britney and started having sex with her she said it first started by Britney sending naked pictures to the boys and that led to them having sex and apparently this was prior to him turning 16 and there was also some sort of indication that she might harm herself if this ever got out so Ashley first of all very interesting that you have this account which is much more egregious much more serious comes out after the first charges

I imagine this happens a lot right we sometimes in these cases we talk about when a teacher is accused of wrongdoing is the start of the floodgates will more allegations come out you know one thing comes out and then you have other accounts not necessarily meaning that this is true but it's not uncommon that we see one set of allegations then leads to another set of allegations right absolutely and I I would truly commend the the 17 and 18yearold who came forward and reported her behavior at the high school before it became even more egregious

because it allowed these this younger boy to feel comfortable enough to report to his grandmother because he knew Britney was in jail um so I think that you know that is something that can't be overlooked here that there was this element of fear and threat that had had been used to um to commit this crime if if these allegations are true so that's something that I think is important so let let me explain what happened so Detective Williams uh does an interview with this grandson and we're not going to get into a lot of the

details from this interview because they are just incredibly too graphic but the detective asked the teen why he thought he was there to talk to him and the Teen reportedly told him the way he looked at it it was no different than a 30-year-old man and a 15-year-old girl he said that it was still messed up and that it was child molestation he said he's there because he doesn't want her to molest more kids he said that there's some of the victims who are considering talking about what happened but there's others that don't want to

talk about it I asked when he says her who he was referring to and he says Britney Fortenberry he says her name might be Marie now and might have changed it I would advise that Britney's middle name is Marie so Ashley again this is quite the account and and if true highlight The Bravery of this young person to come forward to try to essentially protect other people protect other teens however I will ask ask you is it tougher to prove this case if we assume for a moment you don't have the digital evidence like the

the charges regarding dissemination or Communications if this is based purely on the account of an alleged victim a minor is that enough to secure a conviction here is that as strong of a case what do you think again assuming there's not a plethora of digital evidence to support this I I would say absolutely here um the my read of the information in that affidavit shows incredible detail by that young man who came forward and a lot of events and occurrences and trips that could be verified through other evidence um circumstantial evidence and I think that

certainly um there there is not much reason to question motivation from the young man given those circumstances as as their um set forth in the documents and it's interesting because when we talk about these stories where the alleged Predator is a female and the victim is a young male there are often comments about how the teen was lucky to be with an attractive older woman but this is a victim this is a very very traumatic situation and it's allegedly a crime I mean the alleged victim in this case said even though he might have thought

that at first oh you know he quickly changed his mind and realized what had happened so according to statements that he apparently made to the det Ive the teen would often hang out at Fort and Barry's home with friends and at one point one of his male friends told the teen that he could have sex with Fort Barry if he wanted to and that is when he claims when he was 15 he was laying down on a bed at Fort and Berry's trying to take a nap when he claimed she snuggled up next to him

and eventually initiated sex and he said multiple times in in the interview that it was weird but he did it anyway according to the teen Fortenberry gave him mushrooms and was often High herself during their sexual encounters he also claims that she would get mad at the teens if they didn't want to have sex he told Detective Williams that he had sex with Fortenberry two or three times and that at least one of those encounters involved another teen at the same time and and then you got to hear this so the probable cause statement reads

he added that Britney's husband was a firefighter and that he knew what was going on with the victim and didn't say anything now the teen later told the detective that for told her that she and her husband were in an open relationship Ashley a lot to digest here um if there's an issue is there an issue I should ask in terms of credibility if someone is drugged whether they're an adult whether they're minor if they're given some sort of um substance mushrooms whatever it might be does that affect their cred credibility in terms of what

actually happened between her them and the per the alleged perpetrator that's a really interesting question um and credibility is always a question for the jury um in that situation so the jury would be able to know that he was under the influence of a substance and they would take that into consideration in hearing his testimony and it would be up to them individually to weigh his evidence weigh his credibility based on the facts and circumstances could the husband be compelled to tell testify or are there spousal privilege issues and he wouldn't be allowed to testify

to the communications he had with his wife but could he be compelled to testify and something else um related to factual matters yes um he he would have privilege spousal privilege like you said as to any Communications that they had individually um but you know same thing in gathering evidence his cell phone his his whereabouts if he was it uh whether he was sharing the marital home or not if there are cameras in the home anything like that he he could be compelled to provide evidence and when it comes to her husband by the way

so on Tuesday fortenberry's husband Nicholas filed a verified petition for dissolution of marriage according to the filing the two had gotten married in November 2020 they shared one biological child the paperwork noted that their separation date was the same day that Fort Barry was arrested by the way real quick if they even if they get divorced those Communications can still be privileged right correct yes if they occur during the marage okay got it now uh metropolitan school district of Martinsville put out a statement about uh Fort Barry's time with the district saying this former employee

was hired as a substitute teacher on October 24th 2023 obtained a state issued emergency license and resigned from the MSD of martville on January 9th 2024 the resignation was not related to sexual misconduct allegations during the individual's employment period with the MSD of Martinsville there were no identified reports of sexual misconduct to the administration or the anonymous tip line we want to assure families that the MSD of Martinsville conducts a full criminal background check for all new employees as part of the standard hiring procedures the background check report indicated no criminal activity for this former

employee I think that statement is really interesting Ashley because it's suggesting we didn't know about this we found out when everybody else found out right yeah abs absolutely and I I think um some of the information from the other affidavit and uh Britney's own statements in it about her relationships with children and boys that she she claims to have kind of Taken under her Wing in a a caretaking relationship um giving them gifts taking them on trips buying them food um she herself reports that there were rumors and allegations about her relationships um so the

school district you know the criminal background check is just one piece of the puzzle there's still an ongoing duty to supervise your employees supervise children that are in your your custody and Care well look Miss Fortenberry is next expected in court in April these are allegations she's innocent until proven guilty but you know some interesting pieces of evidence and testimony they might be up against her and uh a jury trial is scheduled for June but obviously that date could be pushed off um you know Ashley thanks so much for coming on really appreciate you taking

the time and uh thank you for your Insight as always absolutely thank you all right everybody that's all we have for you right now here on sidebar thank you so much for joining us and as always please subscribe and come check us out on YouTube Apple podcast Spotify wherever you should get your podcast I'm Jesse Weber I'll speak to you next time [Music]