Dangerous Liaisons

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Speaker 9 He didn't look like a 15-year-old boy. He didn't act like a 15-year-old boy.

Speaker 11 He said that they were friends, but that nothing had happened.

Speaker 12 The text messages are the truth.

Speaker 7 She was a 33-year-old high school tutor. He was her 15-year-old student.

Speaker 11 He was in love.

Speaker 7 But after his mom found this on his phone, police knew this was no innocent teenage crush.

Speaker 10 He said that they had sex on several different occasions.

Speaker 11 It was an illegal relationship.

Speaker 7 A horrible crime to be accused of. But she insisted he wasn't the victim.
She was.

Speaker 9 I was petrified of him. Petrified.

Speaker 7 She says he forced himself on her.

Speaker 14 Did you ever have consensual sex with him?

Speaker 8 Never.

Speaker 7 Prosecutors said she was lying.

Speaker 16 She was insulted that you didn't believe her.

Speaker 12 I was insulted that she thought someone would.

Speaker 7 A tutor and her pupil, breaking all the rules. But who was telling the truth?

Speaker 19 We both knew what we were doing was wrong.

Speaker 8 He owned me.

Speaker 12 I never have had as much evidence against someone as I had in this case.

Speaker 7 I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.

Speaker 7 Here's Keith Morrison with dangerous liaisons.

Speaker 21 You two were in cahoots to trust.

Speaker 23 It didn't have to end here.

Speaker 24 He keeps stating things that he has no evidence for as though it's fact.

Speaker 25 And I'm not sure what to do with that.

Speaker 14 With attorneys at war.

Speaker 26 You've got the evidence. No, don't just say that.

Speaker 28 It was the theater of the absurd.

Speaker 30 I want to know who are you.

Speaker 8 Detectives upset.

Speaker 13 I thought it was disgusting.

Speaker 32 I thought it was just really horrible the way they dragged that family through the mud.

Speaker 33 Nor did there have to be a sobbing witness.

Speaker 8 I'm trying to be honest up here, and it's so disrespectful.

Speaker 34 Just a minute.

Speaker 33 Even a judge.

Speaker 21 This thing is getting totally out of control.

Speaker 35 Visibly on edge. I'm beginning to lose it a little bit.

Speaker 36 Victim bashing. No,

Speaker 37 it didn't have to turn into a battle royal.

Speaker 35 Played out in public court for all the world to see.

Speaker 14 Well, emotions can be high.

Speaker 35 It didn't have to go that way at all. Or end this way.

Speaker 38 We the jury on count one.

Speaker 34 That's all hindsight now.

Speaker 39 Where a person begins a story as twisted and strange as this one can seem arbitrary, perhaps, but in this case, to us it made sense to begin on a Friday morning in April 2013 in the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan, when a phone rang on the desk of Detective Amy Lowry.

Speaker 39 It was a call from an attorney who reported that a mother of a high school sophomore had seen something that couldn't be unseen.

Speaker 11 The boy's mother had suspected something and

Speaker 10 had taken his phone in because it was broken and had the information transferred to another phone to view what was on his phone.

Speaker 47 And what was on it?

Speaker 42 Well, besides the flood of texts and photos you'd expect to see on any teenager's phone, it was

Speaker 22 this.

Speaker 39 It was grainy, but unmistakable.

Speaker 43 A scantily clad woman.

Speaker 22 A woman clearly much older than the boy.

Speaker 45 The photo, along with the accompanying text messages, longing, urgent, breathless, left no doubt whatsoever in the mind of the detective.

Speaker 10 Immediately, it was evident that there was a romantic relationship going on.

Speaker 6 So how did you view that from a legal and ethical and moral point of view?

Speaker 32 Well, Well, obviously it needed to be investigated.

Speaker 54 Detective Lowry was experienced in matters like the one before her now.

Speaker 33 She's a Grand Rapids Police Detective, but for nearly a decade has been assigned to the Children's Assessment Center as one of five full-time investigators working on cases involving the sexual abuse of children.

Speaker 34 Five people full-time

Speaker 6 in a town that sounds in the Grand Rapids, that tells you something, doesn't it?

Speaker 18 Correct.

Speaker 34 Do you find that dispiriting?

Speaker 10 Very.

Speaker 46 I mean it's I think most people would find it dispiriting the amount of cases that we have to investigate of this nature.

Speaker 39 This one needed to be investigated not only because of what the detective saw on the phone.

Speaker 45 No, it was more than that.

Speaker 33 The lawyer who called the detective worked for the Catholic Diocese of Grand Rapids and told her the young man in question was a student and star athlete here at Grand Rapids Catholic Central High School.

Speaker 47 And the woman worked here.

Speaker 42 She wasn't just any school employee.

Speaker 56 She was the student's school-appointed tutor.

Speaker 46 She is a person of authority.

Speaker 31 It's obviously an inappropriate relationship.

Speaker 11 I knew that she was in her 30s and that he was only 15 years old.

Speaker 10 So regardless, it was an illegal relationship.

Speaker 52 Detective Lowry went over to see the boy's parents.

Speaker 54 Had they questioned their son?

Speaker 31 No, the mother hadn't questioned her son at all.

Speaker 11 I think she was unsure how to bring it up. She knew that he would, you know, most likely be angry about it.

Speaker 6 She wanted somebody to put a stop to this.

Speaker 11 Absolutely.

Speaker 48 So next, the detective went to Catholic Central High School and after meeting with the administrators, pulled the young man, then a sophomore, out of class, middle of the afternoon.

Speaker 20 What did he tell you?

Speaker 13 Initially, he denied that there was any

Speaker 11 relationship taking place.

Speaker 10 He said that they were friends, but that nothing had happened.

Speaker 3 You knew that wasn't so.

Speaker 22 Right.

Speaker 46 Based on the text messages.

Speaker 18 Did you explain that to him? I did.

Speaker 10 I read him some of the text messages, and that's when he admitted that there was a sexual relationship.

Speaker 55 It often goes that way with a teenager, said Detective Lowry, as any parent at one would understand.

Speaker 51 Stages of denial, which in this case, over a series of interviews, finally gave way to what the boys seemed to see as the crux of the matter.

Speaker 46 He thought that they should be allowed to have the relationship, you know, because he was mature enough and

Speaker 10 they loved each other and should be together.

Speaker 46 It's very common that they don't see themselves as a victim in this.

Speaker 1 That's where it all gets kind of strange, doesn't it?

Speaker 32 Yes.

Speaker 42 And now, it was time for the detective to talk to the tutor at the center of the case.

Speaker 22 The one in that photo in the cell phone.

Speaker 45 Abigail Simon.

Speaker 7 One of the many things the detective wanted to know was who made the first move. When we returned, the tale of the tape, but what was true and what wasn't.

Speaker 29 Who initiated it?

Speaker 30 You never had sex.

Speaker 29 I know you have sex. You told me that.
I want to know who initiated it.

Speaker 30 I'm not answering that.

Speaker 23 A cloud darkened the joy of spring in Grand Rapids, Michigan that April of 2013.

Speaker 37 The mother of a sophomore at one of the city's most prestigious high schools, Catholic Central, had found this photo on a cell phone her son had been using.

Speaker 47 Couldn't just let it go. He was 15.
The woman was his tutor.

Speaker 59 And so before long, Detective Amy Lowry was assigned to figure out what was going on.

Speaker 44 The fact that the adult was female, the child male, didn't really make any difference to her.

Speaker 46 I think there's a double standard in in society where they view females in this situation as victims, but I think a lot of society just doesn't feel the same way about boys.

Speaker 46 There are consequences to this type of relationship, you know, even with boys.

Speaker 42 But remember that series of interviews and shifting stories from the boy?

Speaker 48 When the detective got him to admit there was something between them, an affair consummated in the tutor's gleaming high-rise condo, the boy announced that it was he who started it, not her.

Speaker 44 That it wasn't her fault.

Speaker 51 So what would the tutor, Abigail Simon, say? You're not a nerd, okay?

Speaker 36 You're free to leave, but there's something that we need to talk about.

Speaker 30 Okay.

Speaker 52 And when Miss Simon heard that text messages were in question, she knew why the detective was there.

Speaker 22 That pupil of hers.

Speaker 27 You know who I'm talking about now?

Speaker 30 We've just become close this year.

Speaker 30 I tried to help him change his life around.

Speaker 54 But when the subject turned to the specifics of their relationship, which the detective felt was plainly outlined in those racy texts and photos,

Speaker 8 well,

Speaker 34 a surprise.

Speaker 31 He calls you baby girl, you call him baby boy.

Speaker 30 Do you think that's appropriate or? No. I care so much for him.
I do. I adore him.

Speaker 30 I don't even know what to say about it.

Speaker 29 Who initiated it?

Speaker 29 I mean, I I

Speaker 30 it it we never actually had like we never had sex.

Speaker 29 I know you had sex. He told me that, and I can read the text messages.
That's not a question of whether you guys had sex or not. I want to know who initiated it,

Speaker 29 who asked who to do what.

Speaker 30 I'm not answering that, because

Speaker 30 I don't know what your definition is then.

Speaker 10 Her response was, well, I don't know what

Speaker 32 your definition of sex is.

Speaker 34 It's a little print mask, isn't it?

Speaker 47 I would agree with that, yeah.

Speaker 14 So, what did she, did she tell you then what her definition definition was?

Speaker 32 No, she ended the interview.

Speaker 16 That was it.

Speaker 18 Correct.

Speaker 44 The detective confiscated Abby's iPhone, and later that very day, the Diocese of Grand Rapids fired her from her job as a tutor.

Speaker 44 Also, she was, by police order, told not to have any contact whatsoever with the young man.

Speaker 54 He is serious.

Speaker 42 Detective Lowry continued her investigation.

Speaker 37 And before long was approached by other people at the school, saying they had concerns about Ms.

Speaker 22 Simon for a while.

Speaker 10 Some of the teachers felt her behavior was inappropriate around some other students.

Speaker 51 So then Detective Lowry sought out those other students and heard something else may have happened. Something with another young man.

Speaker 10 There was another boy who said there was an incident in the library where they were talking, they were flirting, which they had for some time, and he kissed her.

Speaker 34 And did she tell him to stop, go away, this is inappropriate?

Speaker 13 He described it as a short kiss, and he said that, you know, that can't happen again, and she says, no, it can't.

Speaker 10 And that was the end of the story.

Speaker 5 As investigators dug deeper, another detective joined the case.

Speaker 54 Dave Gillum, called in for his uncanny ability to plumb a cell phone for almost anything it's ever done.

Speaker 41 On Abby Simon's iPhone, that was not an easy thing to do.

Speaker 36 She had erased.

Speaker 57 most of the text messages between her and the victim, and I was able to recover

Speaker 57 many of them. We don't know how many there were, but we did recover thousands and thousands of

Speaker 37 text messages.

Speaker 6 And this is material that had been erased, material she chose to erase.

Speaker 5 Correct.

Speaker 16 What did that imply to you?

Speaker 57 She was hiding it. She knew that it was not something that she would want people to see and so she deleted it.

Speaker 54 The sun soon set on another school year. Abby moved back to her parents' place a two-hour drive from Grand Rapids.
Summer came,

Speaker 41 and then the detective discovered that her no-contact order wasn't enough to keep Abby Simon away from her teenage lover.

Speaker 31 She

Speaker 32 tweeted him and gave him the information on how to contact her because I had her phone, so he couldn't call her anymore or text her anymore.

Speaker 10 She had changed phone numbers,

Speaker 46 but somehow he was able to email her and call her.

Speaker 5 And at least once, they managed to meet in person.

Speaker 37 In fact, he was very upset at being told he couldn't see her again, right?

Speaker 46 Yes, he was in love.

Speaker 59 In fact, he created a new email account, Jose Diaz27, and the photos and declarations of everlasting love flew between them at the speed of infatuation.

Speaker 41 And then, in early August, some three months after the relationship came to light, Abigail Simon drove from her parents' house to the gym.

Speaker 5 and there was the police car.

Speaker 56 This was her mugshot.

Speaker 45 She was charged with several counts of criminal sexual conduct and accosting a minor for immoral purposes.

Speaker 43 But she soon made bail.

Speaker 60 Two,

Speaker 8 three.

Speaker 42 And as the case against her was being prepared back in Grand Rapids, she sat down with us to say that everything we'd been told about this so-called teacher-child love story was altogether wrong.

Speaker 9 I read the police report too, and when I read it, I was like, oh yeah, she is guilty. And none of those things were true.

Speaker 5 This was no love story, said Abigail Simon.

Speaker 22 No,

Speaker 54 more like a nightmare.

Speaker 7 Coming up.

Speaker 7 After school, behind closed doors.

Speaker 9 He didn't look like a 15-year-old boy. He didn't act like a 15-year-old boy.
He was a monster.

Speaker 7 When dateline continues.

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Speaker 47 This was not the sort of place people are often arrested.

Speaker 37 Not among the fine big homes and expansive lawns of Grand Blanc, Michigan.

Speaker 42 This is where Abigail Simon grew up, her father a successful attorney, both parents graduates of Notre Dame.

Speaker 56 But this is where she was pulled over, arrested, and charged with criminal sexual conduct for having a relationship with her then 15-year-old Catholic Central High School pupil.

Speaker 65 And where, in November 2014, she sat down with us in the family living room.

Speaker 8 How does it feel to be you right now? Well,

Speaker 9 today it's scary because this is the first time I'm sharing this with anyone other than my therapists and my lawyers, my parents. I feel empowered to do it.

Speaker 9 Finally, I've been holding on to it for so long.

Speaker 50 Holding on to what exactly?

Speaker 51 Well, Abby Simon told us that everything you've heard about her relationship with the young man is a lie.

Speaker 48 Perpetuated by his family and overzealous detectives.

Speaker 9 It's hard because the way it's being portrayed and my story that's already been told by them is so not the person I am.

Speaker 14 Abby's story?

Speaker 54 After obtaining a master's degree in academic advising, she moved to Grand Rapids and was offered a position in that very specialty by the Catholic diocese.

Speaker 33 But soon, she said, she wasn't so much advising as tutoring athletes at two Catholic high schools.

Speaker 5 One of them was that boy, who she said was struggling with a 1.7 grade point average, and so she helped him as much as she could, often late into the evenings, as she said she did with all her students.

Speaker 22 Then, said Abby, it was January 2013, and the incident occurred, the thing that started it all.

Speaker 48 It happened, she said, at the end of a group study session.

Speaker 9 He waited till everyone left. And then he was so angry that I didn't give him any attention, that I wasn't helping him, and that I didn't care about him.

Speaker 9 And I was like, that's a slap in the face to me because I've done everything for you. And he slapped my face and said, no, that's a slap in the face.

Speaker 34 He slapped your face?

Speaker 9 Slapped my face. No, that's a slap in the face.

Speaker 15 He's 15 years old.

Speaker 16 You can get him kicked out of school for that.

Speaker 9 But I didn't want to. He was the scariest person.

Speaker 8 Alive.

Speaker 52 The scariest person alive?

Speaker 39 Abby Simon was telling us something she had never told the detectives investigating this case, nor even friends or family at the time she said it was going on.

Speaker 6 The appropriate response would have been immediate, and it would be over.

Speaker 67 I mean, he'd have to atone somehow.

Speaker 15 You were the one in charge.

Speaker 67 Did you not feel as if you could do that?

Speaker 8 Why?

Speaker 9 He didn't care if he got in trouble. He shut me down.

Speaker 51 And after?

Speaker 41 Abby said she became terrified of the big, athletic young man, already over six feet and nearing 200 pounds, though he was just 15.

Speaker 5 Why so frightened of a teenage boy?

Speaker 42 Well, she said, part of the reason was she had been a victim of domestic violence before, back in 2007, when she was working at a retail store in Chicago and had a boyfriend whom she claimed was abusive.

Speaker 9 I went into his apartment and I said, this isn't going to work. And that's when he lost his mind on me and slammed me to the ground.

Speaker 15 Do you remember what you felt like?

Speaker 9 I thought I was going to die. He told me to take my last breath, that he was going to kill me.
I was just so sad. I'm like, this is how I'm going to die.

Speaker 9 I mean, I thought he was going to snap my neck. That's what it felt like he was trying to do.

Speaker 49 Abby said she ran for her life then.

Speaker 59 Her father, the attorney, persuaded her to go to the police and then eventually to get this restraining order.

Speaker 33 Though soon after that, she tried, against the judge's wishes, to undo it, afraid the man would find out and hurt her, she said.

Speaker 48 The incident changed her life, said Abby.

Speaker 9 I packed my stuff up and moved back home at age like 27 or 28 in like the city I loved and

Speaker 24 the job I loved was forever gone.

Speaker 6 Still bothers you to think about that.

Speaker 6 Was he ever charged with anything?

Speaker 8 No.

Speaker 39 Anyway, that story, said Abby, could explain why she didn't report her young student at Catholic Central High when, her claim, the boy slapped her.

Speaker 56 Nor when, according to her, he stalked her and showed up at Starbucks and other places near her high-rise condo and made her give him the key to her apartment.

Speaker 59 Intimidated her enough, she let him get control of her phone and he used it to send texts to her friends.

Speaker 42 He even tried to control who she could see, she said.

Speaker 59 even when she went out of town.

Speaker 5 And on three separate occasions, she claimed, he sexually assaulted her.

Speaker 15 You know, that first time, if he raped you, the right thing to do is to go to the police.

Speaker 14 He'd be charged.

Speaker 9 Who would believe that? He was 15?

Speaker 9 Who's going to believe that?

Speaker 39 That lingerie photo the boy's mother found. It wasn't a come-on, she said.

Speaker 5 The photo was taken in self-defense.

Speaker 53 It was her cry for help.

Speaker 9 I wasn't posing. It was doing what he wanted me to do.
I wasn't assaulted that night because I did that.

Speaker 15 Did you ever have consensual sex with him?

Speaker 8 Never.

Speaker 42 The proof she offered?

Speaker 22 One text?

Speaker 54 The smoking gun, she claimed.

Speaker 49 One out of, well, actually, thousands of apparently loving and frankly explicit texts.

Speaker 56 This one, though, is so explicit we can't show you the whole text, but it includes a line that suggests sex.

Speaker 39 Reading apart, never put you through that again, baby girl.

Speaker 42 And that, said Abby, is the reason she asked that detective what her definition of sex was.

Speaker 37 Because to Abby, it wasn't sex, it was sexual assault.

Speaker 9 He didn't look like a 15-year-old boy, he didn't act like a 15-year-old boy, he was a monster.

Speaker 33 In our interview, Abby Simon had just offered a stunning defense to a charge of having sex with a boy.

Speaker 22 Turned herself from perpetrator to victim.

Speaker 14 The question was,

Speaker 18 could it hold up in court?

Speaker 7 Coming up, Abby Simons telling text messages to her friends.

Speaker 68 I don't care if he's 20 or 50, I just need my heart skipping.

Speaker 7 And her former student tells all.

Speaker 8 We both knew what we were doing was wrong.

Speaker 52 As the sunshine faded and western Michigan settled into a late fall, it appeared the case against Abigail Simon was headed to a courtroom.

Speaker 5 And so, a veteran prosecutor named Helen Brinkman was assigned the case.

Speaker 58 It was to be her last before retirement.

Speaker 69 She'd made a career out of prosecuting sex crimes.

Speaker 6 You go after rapists and abusers on behalf of victims, and you have a situation where there's a person you're prosecuting who claims she is the victim.

Speaker 12 Yes. What a way to end a 25-year-long career.
To have someone who was preying on a 15-year-old boy for her own gratification turn around and make the child responsible.

Speaker 12 I still have a difficult time wrapping my mind around that.

Speaker 51 Still, in an effort to avoid what was sure to be a very public, very painful trial, the prosecutor's office offered Abby Simon a plea deal.

Speaker 54 Plead guilty to one count of criminal sexual conduct and accept one year behind bars, which, with time off for good behavior, would likely mean Abby would be free in a matter of months.

Speaker 17 I know we as a team

Speaker 28 really

Speaker 12 wanted them to accept that plea offer so that that kid didn't have to go through any of that.

Speaker 12 The damage and the harm that comes from this kind of trial trial to a kid, you just can't understand until you're that kid and you're that kid's family.

Speaker 54 But Abigail Simon turned the deal down, cold.

Speaker 35 Some people probably thought, what the heck were you thinking, right?

Speaker 9 Most people.

Speaker 15 So why'd you do it?

Speaker 9 I was threatened and stalked and assaulted and scared out of my mind, and then I'd have to pay for his consequences forever.

Speaker 42 Forever, because had she taken the plea deal, Abby would be placed on the sexual offenders list, and that wouldn't ever go away.

Speaker 6 So now, now you're facing this trial,

Speaker 34 it's not going to be easy, is it?

Speaker 9 Next year,

Speaker 9 it was a guaranteed I'd be sitting at that table for Thanksgiving if I took the deal. Guaranteed.
I'd be my sister, just got engaged. I'd be at her wedding no matter what.

Speaker 18 I couldn't do it.

Speaker 66 Why?

Speaker 9 Because

Speaker 9 he owned me. I needed to be able to get my story out, and I couldn't live like that.

Speaker 42 And so, in November 2014, Kent County Courthouse in Grand Rapids, Abigail Simon entered the courtroom to fight charges that theoretically could put her in prison for life, and to do so by claiming that she was the victim of a big, strong, abusive boy.

Speaker 70 Ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker 45 To which Prosecutor Helen Brinkman replied, Who does she think she's kidding?

Speaker 24 What this may be

Speaker 24 is practicing

Speaker 24 a play in the theater of the absurd.

Speaker 37 Abby was certainly not sexually assaulted, said the prosecutor.

Speaker 59 This, she told the jury, was an extremely inappropriate love story, as evidenced by the testimony of the young man's mother.

Speaker 8 Did you ever confront your son about this?

Speaker 71 No, I didn't.

Speaker 60 Why not?

Speaker 9 Because I knew he would run to her and

Speaker 71 tell her and wouldn't be able to be exposed. He was madly in love with Miss Simon with his whole heart and his whole soul.

Speaker 52 The law is absolutely clear, said the prosecution.

Speaker 53 Abby's behavior was illegal.

Speaker 69 The boy was 15.

Speaker 52 The age of consent with a teacher is 18.

Speaker 44 Why they asked would Abby Simon take him on day trips to Chicago and Notre Dame, where this photo was taken of the smiling couple, if not for love.

Speaker 5 It was a disturbing story, they said, best told through Abby's text messages.

Speaker 43 The prosecutor called one by one Abby's friends and had them read messages Abby sent them,

Speaker 39 reflecting thousands of other texts that sounded very much like a woman in love with a boy.

Speaker 68 All that matters is that our hearts are skipping beats. All I need.
I don't care if he's 20 or 50. I just need my heart skipping, and that's all it is doing with this boy.

Speaker 70 Parentheses, child.

Speaker 24 And it's concerning the only person whose company I enjoy here is a 15-year-old.

Speaker 24 I will be upbeat starting now.

Speaker 17 Do you deny receiving that text from her?

Speaker 12 No.

Speaker 70 The text after the picture of his face said, this is my child, or that's my child, something like that.

Speaker 12 I never have had as much evidence against someone as I had in this case. Never.

Speaker 12 She had texts so many people bragging about her inappropriate relationship with this child and knowing that it was wrong, telling him that it was wrong. We can't keep doing this.

Speaker 17 I could go to jail.

Speaker 52 Then the young man took the stand, spent parts of four days there, detailing an affair that he said lasted two months.

Speaker 23 We're not showing his face on camera in court.

Speaker 19 We both knew what we were doing was wrong.

Speaker 48 The prosecutor took him through hundreds more texts.

Speaker 35 All those words of longing between a school tutor and a boy too young even to drive.

Speaker 17 She says, I need you in my bed now.

Speaker 63 Is that right?

Speaker 20 Yes.

Speaker 24 So she says, she's telling you she needs you in her bed now and she's going to come and pick you up, basically, right?

Speaker 8 Yes.

Speaker 5 Open and chut case, said the prosecutor.

Speaker 12 The text messages are the truth. They're not created with any other intent than to communicate what they want to communicate at the time.
The text messages are the truth.

Speaker 33 Now, after that avalanche of evidence against her, Abigail Simon was about to tell the jury the story she told us.

Speaker 3 But this time, she'd be seated across from a prosecutor who couldn't wait for her turn with the defendant.

Speaker 7 Coming up, tears.

Speaker 8 I'm trying to be honest up here, and it's so disrespectful.

Speaker 18 And fireworks.

Speaker 9 You know, when you're in this situation,

Speaker 24 the situation of being in love with a 15-year-old.

Speaker 9 I wasn't in love with you.

Speaker 24 Loving to have sex with the 15-year-old, right?

Speaker 27 Nope, with a great body, right?

Speaker 9 Nope.

Speaker 7 When dateline continues.

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Speaker 69 Prosecutors had laid out their case in a torrent of text messages, a damning indictment of a boundary-crossing love affair between then 33-year-old Abigail Simon and her then 15-year-old pupil.

Speaker 5 But now, Abby's defense set out to turn the story on its head.

Speaker 26 It's not a love story. It's a control story.

Speaker 51 Defense attorney Michael Manley told the jury that Abby was the innocent party here, a victim

Speaker 39 held under the the thumb of a controlling, dangerous young man who could snap at any moment.

Speaker 66 Keep in mind,

Speaker 26 one punch could kill, and no woman should ever have to go through what she went through. The evidence will show that this young lady that I'm so proud of is finally standing up against the bully.

Speaker 42 How to understand the psychology involved?

Speaker 8 Good morning, sir.

Speaker 33 The defense called an expert on domestic violence.

Speaker 76 The image we have of the violence used in domestic violence tends to be the black eye and the broken bone.

Speaker 76 The reality of the violence in abusive relationships is that it tends to be low-level pushes, shoves, grabs, but having a cumulative effect over time

Speaker 76 that is as frightening as severe violence can be.

Speaker 42 First, Abby had to survive an abuse ordeal back in Chicago, said the defense.

Speaker 59 And then, at the school, the boy relaunched the fear by slapping Abby's face after their study session that night. And so Attorney Manley launched a days-long cross-examination of the young man.

Speaker 52 He denied he ever slapped Abby, except possibly playfully during sex.

Speaker 22 But then there followed one accusation after another.

Speaker 26 Is this whole thing that you did to Miss Simon?

Speaker 26 So you could be popular to say, I've got the hot tutor?

Speaker 26 That's not what you did? No.

Speaker 49 The defense told the the jury the young man had changed his story several times and in fact he had in his first interview with police he said he forced abby to have sex with him and twice said he put a gun to her head you told detective lowry that you pointed a gun to her head and told her that i would kill her if she didn't love me back yes

Speaker 47 detective lowry at the time didn't believe him for a minute and later sure enough the young man recanted said the putting a gun to her head comment was his effort to keep Abby from getting into trouble.

Speaker 5 But the defense attorney flat-out accused the young man of sexual assault.

Speaker 26 You forced yourself

Speaker 26 on Miss Simon in the car on the 24th of April, did you not?

Speaker 19 No.

Speaker 8 I did not.

Speaker 26 You didn't grab her by the hair

Speaker 26 and put her head into your lap and no.

Speaker 56 And finally, the defense confronted him with what it said was proof of sexual assault, what it called the smoking gun text.

Speaker 37 The one you'll recall, which clearly suggested sex had taken place.

Speaker 23 In the text, the boy apologizes, promises to never put you through that again, baby girl.

Speaker 26 First of all, did you send that text message?

Speaker 20 Yes.

Speaker 26 Can you explain to the jury what that meant?

Speaker 19 Never

Speaker 8 doing

Speaker 26 anything again in the car. And it's your testimony that that text message is only because

Speaker 26 it was uncomfortable in the car?

Speaker 20 Yes.

Speaker 26 It was consensual between you two.

Speaker 8 Yes.

Speaker 14 When he was finally allowed to leave the stand, it appeared that Abby's defense and her freedom depended on the story she

Speaker 18 and she alone was about to tell.

Speaker 26 We would call Abigail Simon to the stand.

Speaker 21 The question.

Speaker 33 Despite all those text messages professing her deep and abiding love,

Speaker 39 would the jury, could the jury, believe Abigail Simon's claim that she was a victim?

Speaker 75 Simon, would you raise your right hand?

Speaker 26 You've been in therapy for 18 months now, correct?

Speaker 8 Yes.

Speaker 26 Are you ready to tell your story?

Speaker 9 Yes.

Speaker 9 At one point, I remember thinking, like, this is my life right now. Like, I'm doing this for a 15-year-old.
Like, how is this even possible? I'm his. He owned me.

Speaker 8 He owned me up until today when I got here to finally tell what happened.

Speaker 8 And he never thought I would come up here and tell the truth. He thought I would cover for him.

Speaker 14 Of course, by taking the stand in her own defense to tell her story,

Speaker 33 Abby Simon knew she was opening herself up to what would no doubt be an intense cross-examination by prosecutor Helen Brinkman.

Speaker 54 The question we put to Abby before the trial.

Speaker 34 The prosecutor is going to challenge you every which way to Sunday and accuse you of all kinds of things.

Speaker 9 And the best part is, I can just tell the truth. I can just be honest.
So I don't have to remember what was I supposed to say. I can just tell the story.

Speaker 12 You never reported, right?

Speaker 54 But the prosecutor's opinion of Miss Simon was clear from the start.

Speaker 9 You know, when you're in this situation,

Speaker 24 the situation of being in love with the 15-year-old, I wasn't in love with you.

Speaker 17 Loving to have sex with the 15-year-old, right?

Speaker 27 Nope. With the great body, right? Nope.

Speaker 9 Do you really think that A, if I don't know?

Speaker 17 Stop. You don't get to ask the questions.

Speaker 8 When I'm trying to tell something and you roll your eyes or laugh about it, I'm trying to be honest up here and it's so disrespectful.

Speaker 12 The more she talked, the more she

Speaker 12 attacked me during cross-examination.

Speaker 16 She was insulted that you didn't believe her.

Speaker 12 Yes, and I was insulted that she thought someone would.

Speaker 17 Who told you you don't have to have proof? I'm not.

Speaker 34 And for portions of two days,

Speaker 5 it went just like that.

Speaker 9 I've never, I never used the word rapist. I said he forced me against my will.

Speaker 38 I have the binder.

Speaker 24 He keeps stating things that he has no evidence evidence for as though it's fact.

Speaker 26 You've got the evidence.

Speaker 35 No, don't just say that.

Speaker 21 Just a minute. This thing is getting totally out of control and beginning to lose it a little bit.

Speaker 17 You have no problem barking back at me, do you?

Speaker 38 Nope.

Speaker 12 Nope.

Speaker 17 Pretty strong person, aren't you?

Speaker 9 Yes, after 18 months of therapy, this is the first time my dad said it at lunch day. He's never seen it.

Speaker 8 Objection.

Speaker 38 Objection.

Speaker 17 Objection.

Speaker 9 We didn't have to. That's waiting for this day.

Speaker 77 Just answer it, yes or no, man.

Speaker 14 Finally, the prosecutor asked: if Abby's text messages were the cry for help, she claimed, why didn't she tell her father, the attorney who was in court with her every day and helped her escape the abuse she said she suffered years earlier in Chicago?

Speaker 17 All you had to do was ask your dad, call your dad on the phone.

Speaker 12 I'm being beaten. I'm being raped.
He's a lawyer.

Speaker 9 You know it's not that easy. You know it's not that easy.

Speaker 17 It is that easy.

Speaker 24 You did it before.

Speaker 8 Women do this all the time.

Speaker 77 Just a minute. Just a minute.
Who told you that? Just a minute.

Speaker 8 I've lived it. I've lived it.
And it is so scary. And you can't go to the police right away.

Speaker 8 And you know that.

Speaker 54 Finally, Abigail Simon left the stand.

Speaker 5 It was the jury's turn.

Speaker 6 What did you think as the jury went out at the end of that trial?

Speaker 12 I worried because we don't hold women accountable like we do men. We don't.
That's our society. I think people don't want to believe that women can be cunning and

Speaker 17 devious and child molesters.

Speaker 8 But they are.

Speaker 39 So, Abby Simon, for the moment, as free as a bird,

Speaker 5 waited to find out if she'd stay that way.

Speaker 7 Coming up, the verdict.

Speaker 71 We, the jury, on count one on the charge of criminal sexual conduct.

Speaker 45 November 2014, just hours before the Thanksgiving holiday was to begin.

Speaker 39 Not a word from the jury for 12 hours.

Speaker 50 Would they believe Abby or the prosecution?

Speaker 6 And then they were back.

Speaker 35 And we're ready for the jury.

Speaker 6 Abby Simon seemed to be teetering on the brink, an emotional wreck.

Speaker 77 Madam Forkerson, if you would kindly stand and by reading from the form where it starts,

Speaker 35 we the jury.

Speaker 71 We the jury on count one on the charge of criminal sexual conduct, first degree.

Speaker 71 We the jury find the defendant Abigail Simon guilty.

Speaker 5 Abby's mother and sister cried out in anger and anguish.

Speaker 56 The jury just didn't believe her.

Speaker 71 On the charge of accosting a child for immoral purposes, we the jury find the defendant Abigail Simon guilty.

Speaker 22 On and on it went.

Speaker 71 Guilty.

Speaker 7 Four guilty verdicts.

Speaker 54 Acquitted on a fifth.

Speaker 43 Minutes later, Abigail Simon went directly to jail.

Speaker 20 You are so strong.

Speaker 54 Outside the courtroom, Defense Attorney Michael Manley spoke.

Speaker 6 Were you surprised by what happened in there? Shocked.

Speaker 6 Shocked and devastated.

Speaker 36 Very disappointed in the jury's verdict.

Speaker 26 She's at peace. She already won.
She told her story. She faced her accuser.
And nobody's going to hurt her again.

Speaker 54 But after listening to the defense attempt to pay to Abby as the victim, Grand Rapids Police Detective Dave Gillam finally felt free to speak his mind.

Speaker 36 There's a level of victim bashing and victim blaming and throwing this family, not only the victim, but the family under the bus on over and over and over is unprecedented in my 18 years.

Speaker 36 I've never seen anything to that degree.

Speaker 34 Something got under your skin big time.

Speaker 57 Yes, this is a 15-year-old kid.

Speaker 57 You're a 35-year-old woman, 36-year-old woman, that you took advantage of, and you're blaming, not just blaming him, but accusing him of a crime that could put him in prison for the rest of his life.

Speaker 57 Extraordinarily bothered me.

Speaker 43 Because he said, none of the evidence, not one thing, suggested that the boy was in any way aggressive or abusive toward the woman he loved.

Speaker 60 All right.

Speaker 54 Seven weeks later, after spending Thanksgiving and Christmas behind behind bars, out for sentencing came Abigail Simon, visibly diminished.

Speaker 54 When it was her chance to speak, she said, perhaps no surprise, she regretted her decision to turn down the plea deal, which would likely have meant mere months in jail in total.

Speaker 42 Kicking herself, really, for, way she put it, selfishly choosing to fight for herself rather than do what was best for her family.

Speaker 8 I'm so much more than remorseful. I don't know how to live with myself for putting my story about them.

Speaker 8 I'm so sorry for all of this. I cry all day and all night every day.

Speaker 8 I'm so tired and sick. And I just want to go home.

Speaker 8 And I want to climb in my mom's bed and never leave her side.

Speaker 8 I'm lost and I'm broken and I don't know how to go on without my family.

Speaker 8 I'm asking you to send me home as soon as possible.

Speaker 37 Pathos doesn't begin to describe the scene in here.

Speaker 54 When it was time for the sentencing, she seemed to swoon, on the verge of passing out.

Speaker 42 Deputies stepped in to study her.

Speaker 75 You okay?

Speaker 56 But Judge Paul Sullivan made it clear he agreed with the jury's verdict.

Speaker 75 The evidence in this case was overwhelming.

Speaker 54 And he handed down a sentence that was in the middle range of possibilities.

Speaker 77 It's going to be the sentence this court that the defendant defendant be turned over to the Michigan Department of Corrections to serve a period of incarceration of not less than eight nor more than 25 years.

Speaker 52 Abigail Simon absorbed the news of her sentence blankly, as if the words blew by her like a fastball.

Speaker 41 Eight to 25 years, a listed sex offender for life.

Speaker 12 Hopefully this will be a lesson to any other teacher who wants to prey on another child. It

Speaker 12 doesn't turn out to be the fantasy they think it is.

Speaker 14 Her earliest possible release date is November of 2022.

Speaker 35 Her appeals have all been rejected.

Speaker 60 All rise.

Speaker 60 Abby,

Speaker 26 we love you. We love you, Abby.

Speaker 54 Her family, who had invited us into their home to hear Abby's side of the story, now declined to speak to us, declined our request for a comment of any kind, and directed attorney Michael Manley to do likewise.

Speaker 51 And the prosecutor, who just watched the end of her last case,

Speaker 5 is mostly sorry she had to bring it to court at all.

Speaker 12 I don't think you put a victim through what she put this victim through. Not confessing, not being repentant.

Speaker 12 I hope she has some time to consider what she did to that family, beyond what she did to that child.

Speaker 4 Since then, the young man's lawyers filed a lawsuit against Simon, claiming battery and emotional distress.

Speaker 2 The lawsuit also accused the local Catholic diocese, two administrators, and a coach of not protecting the young man from the tutor.

Speaker 2 Michigan's Court of Appeals tossed out the lawsuit, but the state Supreme Court is now considering reviewing the case.

Speaker 54 And as for that young man, he's an adult now, still trying to figure out his next step in life.

Speaker 3 His lawyer told us he has dropped out of college and is still struggling.

Speaker 32 He's going to have to live with the fact that, you know, the person that he loved is going to be in prison for eight years.

Speaker 59 Love is blind sometimes.

Speaker 67 And this kind of love was not just a crime. It was a tragedy.

Speaker 7 That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt.
Thanks for joining us.

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