
© Birmingham Police Department
An Alabama teacher who allegedly preyed on female students was also a convicted felon who took a leave of absence from the school to serve his prison sentence.
An Alabama history teacher who allegedly offered A's in exchange for sex also moonlighted as a black-market gun dealer, records show.
Phillip Smith III, of
Birmingham, was indicted on federal gun charges while teaching social studies in 2004.
Yet the school district never knew, even as the high school instructor took a seven-month leave to serve his prison sentence.Now the 43-year-old is facing a lawsuit from the family of a female student, who claims Smith cornered her in class and solicited sex.
The complaint also alleges Smith operated a "sex for grades" scheme that targeted children who struggled in school. Birmingham City Schools and the city's board of education, accused of negligence, are also defendants in the lawsuit.
"He kind of liked to dance around the classroom," the unidentified student told
AL.com, which first revealed the creepy teach's tactics.
"My friends told me to have my boyfriend walk me to his class," the girl added.
Smith allegedly put the moves on the student in December 2013, when he was administering a history exam at Huffman High School.
The convict teacher—
who was also a women's volleyball coach at the school—was later fired and criminally charged as a result of the girl coming forward, her attorney, Julian Hendrix, told The Daily Beast.
While Hendrix's client wasn't sexually assaulted by Smith, authorities allegedly found a 14-year-old girl who was, according to a 2014 AL.com
report.
Comment: Different strokes for different folks and all that. But which stroke is yours? Are you aware enough to know that profound change is upon us? And if you are, dear reader, do you realize to just what extent these changes can and will occur? A difficult question to be sure: "What am I missing?" - if I dare ask such a question? A suggestion: When you're ready, take a moment to reflect on the distinct possibility that nothing - nothing will be the same in the near future as we now, collectively, experience the tumults, convulsions, death rattles and birth pangs of a world in rapid and drastic flux.
We at Sott are not about wishing things better so much as we are about seeing things exactly as they are - whatever they are, and acting and responding constructively to it. But to do that we must be willing to observe and understand 'objective reality' and our place within it first, and as much as possible; seeing ourselves not merely as subjects to the developments we see around us, but also as active participants; actors on a grand stage that is much larger and more complex than anything we've been led to believe - and we can't underestimate or give short shrift to the importance of this participation. Each and every one of us with everything that we think or do.
But before we can do this, we must gain knowledge of the stage.