Carmina Erica Lopez, 32, a fifth-grade teacher at Sunnyslope Elementary School in Palm City, was arrested on Jan. 28, 2009, for allegedly having a four-year relationship with a former student. Lopez was charged with more than 80 counts of sexual abuse with the boy who was 11 at the time the abuse began. Lopez taught the boy when he was in the sixth grade and later became his Godmother.
According to the police, the boy, now 15, reported Lopez to the Child Welfare Services stating that Lopez forced him to have sex with her in 2004.

January 26, 2010, Lopez was acquitted of the final charges after her emotional testimony convinced the jury that she had been repeatedly raped by her student, who was also her godson, and bullied into keeping quiet.

Juror Fred Disharoon told the press that the accuser “...was not credible,” Disharoon said. “… I can’t think of anything he said that we believed.”

The jurors voted unanimously on each count against Lopez.