State Drops Charges Against Teacher Accused Of Forcing Child To Clean Urinal
FORT LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) -- A Broward County teacher who was arrested in February for allegedly forcing a student to clean a dirty urinal with his bare hands no longer faces any charges.
The State Attorney's Office decided not to press charges against Jennifer Forshey.
The veteran teacher was accused of forcing a 10-year old boy at Broward Community Charter School West in Coral Springs to clean the urinal because she thought he'd intentionally clogged it.
Forshey was originally charged with battery on a child by exposing him to urine but the State Attorney's Office declined the case on April 2nd and the case is now closed.
According to officials with the State Attorney's office, the prosecutor who handled the case met with the boy's mother and explained the reasons why no criminal charge could be filed.
The mother was reportedly told: While the teacher's actions were disgusting and her termination from school was appropriate in the prosecutor's opinion, there are no facts to support filing criminal charges of either Child Abuse or Culpable Negligence. The child was not harmed, and if the child was exposed to urine in the urinal, urine is not inherently dangerous. With the absence of such facts, there is no reasonable likelihood of conviction at trial.
Forshey spoke exclusively to CBS4 News on February 20th and said, "I don't want to hurt kids. I want to help kids. Never would I want to hurt, never," she said. "I never intended to hurt any child or would want to hurt a child. That's not how you teach and help people grow. So I would not do that."