re: West Virginia Teacher Has Four Kids With Student.

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“Defendant Harbert groomed and brainwashed Chris beginning at his age of 13,” the lawsuit states. “She controlled his living conditions, controlled his money, controlled his transportation, manipulated him with affection or withheld it, controlled him with discipline, and controlled him with dramatic instances of public (emotion) that would cause him to comply with her to avoid the public drama.”

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Birch lived with his grandmother during the 2004-05 school year when he was in the eighth grade at Bridge Street Middle, as he did not know his father and his mother battled addiction issues. Harbert began buying items for Birch, including shoes. She also gave him advice and guidance, essentially serving as a parent. Birch even thought of her as “mom,” the lawsuit states.

Birch moved in with Harbert and her husband during the summer of 2005, with his grandmother’s approval, according to the lawsuit. After moving in with the Harberts, Elizabeth Harbert first initiated sexual contact with Birch that summer, when she climbed into his sick bed, sexually petting and kissing him.

The sexual contact from Harbert continued, and it was in September 2005, when Birch was 14 and Harbert 28, that the two first had sexual intercourse, the lawsuit states.

Following that initial encounter, Birch said that he felt he had lost Harbert “as a mother,” according to the lawsuit. Harbert allegedly responded by telling Birch he “should just think of her as 70 percent mom and 30 percent girlfriend.”

The sexual abuse continued after that, as the lawsuit states Harbert would regularly sleep in Birch’s bed when her husband worked at nights, and set a trap by the door so she would hear if her husband returned home early. This would give her time to return to the master suite.

Harbert divorced her husband by the winter of 2006, according to the lawsuit. She also allegedly told Birch that she had stopped taking birth control because “she couldn’t afford it and that it was no big deal because she couldn’t get pregnant anyway.” That changed a few months later.

Harbert’s pregnancy and high school

Through his four years at Wheeling Park, Harbert attended all of Birch’s extra-curricular events, and took him to and from school. He participated in football, basketball and track up until his senior year, when his life became “too adult,” the lawsuit states.

During his junior year, Birch learned from Harbert she was pregnant with his child, according to the lawsuit. After this, he tried to end his relationship with her, and began dating a girl his own age.

Harbert told him he would not be able to see his child without having a romantic relationship with her, and these threats continued over the years, according to the lawsuit. The child was born just prior to his senior year — July 2008.

Birch’s senior year “was filled with a baby in diapers, a girlfriend his age that he really like and who felt mutually, and a teacher who would threaten that bad things might happen (loss of ability to see his son) if he broke up with her,” according to the lawsuit.

Birch’s name is not on the birth certificate for his first child, but is on those for the other three children, according to the lawsuit. None of the children have his last name.

Harbert told Birch he wasn’t smart enough for college, that “men needed to work” and he needed to support his family, according to the lawsuit. After graduating he found work as a coal miner, and worked at that job until age 23.

Harbert resigned as a teacher at Wheeling Park High School in August 2018 “to avoid being taken out of school in handcuffs,” the lawsuit states.

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So, does this dumbass realize that he is setting himself up for a couple of decades of child support?...

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