Prison for former Minnesota Teacher of the Year who sexually assaulted student, 14

A former Minnesota Teacher of the Year was sentenced to more than 14 years in prison for sexually assaulting an eighth-grader in his English class at Harvest Best Academy in Minneapolis.

Abdul Jameel Wright, 39, of Minneapolis was sentenced Friday after a judge found him guilty last month of first-degree criminal sexual conduct in connection with the assaults, which lasted for a year and started in September 2016.

That year, Wright was named Minnesota Teacher of the Year. He was the first teacher from a charter school to win the award.

With credit for time in jail after his arrest, Wright is expected to serve about 9½ years in prison and the balance on supervised release. Sentencing terms include that Wright register with the state as a predatory offender.

“Mr. Wright abused his authority and engaged in grossly inappropriate behavior,” read a statement from Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty. “My thoughts are with the victim in this case, who exhibited incredible courage in providing her testimony to help secure a conviction.”

Moriarty’s office pointed out that state sentencing guidelines called for Wright to receive a 12-year sentence, but prosecutors won the longer term by arguing that “he abused his authority as a teacher, and the victim was a student.”

Wright’s defense countered in a court filing that Wright should receive the guideline term because he is “a man with no prior criminal history who has made many positive contributions to his community.”

According to court records:

Wright’s victim testified at trial that they exchanged phone numbers and began extensively exchanging text messages and calls in August 2016. The conversations quickly turned personal and escalated after Wright drove his victim home and kissed her.

From January to April 2017, Wright and his victim began touching and kissing inside his classroom and he eventually engaged in a sex act with her. Over the next four months, Wright engaged in sex acts with the student inside a home where he was renting a room in the basement.

The girl’s parents examined her cellphone in 2017 and discovered hundreds of phone calls and text messages between her and her teacher “occurring at all hours of the day and night.” Her sister also testified that she often saw Wright and her sister together.

Several years later, the girl told her parents that she had been groomed and raped by her teacher. Her mother then called Wright and recorded two phone conversations in which he confessed.