Ex-teacher says trip to Mexico was boy's idea
BY BETSY FRIEDRICH
THE KEARNEY HUB

• Excerpts from the interview with Kelsey Peterson

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• Excerpts from the interview with Kelsey Peterson
LEXINGTON, Neb. — Kelsey Peterson sits in the Dawson County Jail library, a small room filled with dog-eared paperbacks and Bibles.

The 26-year-old wears the plain orange shirt and pants and white plastic shoes of a prisoner. Her dark hair is pulled into a neat bun, and she wears black-framed glasses.

Kelsey Peterson She is accused of having a sexual relationship with Fernando Rodriguez beginning in June 2006, when he was 12 years old and a student at Lexington Middle School, where Peterson was his sixth-grade math teacher. She has been convicted of federal charges and is awaiting trial on state charges.

When school officials discovered the relationship in October 2007, the pair fled to Mexico, leading authorities on a weeklong search.

The Kearney Hub spoke with Peterson in an exclusive interview this week in which she said she knows her actions were wrong, but in some ways she feels like the victim. Her attorney, James Martin Davis, was not present.

Amy Peck, the Omaha attorney representing Rodriguez, said, "Kelsey says that she accepts responsibility for her actions, yet she continues to blame Fernando for what happened."

When the Lexington school district put her on administrative leave because of suspicions that she was having sexual relations with a student, she said she felt her life was "falling apart around me, and I couldn't do anything about it."

She said Rodriguez suggested going to Mexico after receiving a call from a police officer who wanted to talk with him about his relationship with Peterson.

"I can remember sitting there like, 'I don't think that we can just go,'" Peterson said. "And then, at the same time, I didn't have any other answers. I had never been in trouble in my life and was just freaking out."

"In 20 minutes we went from making that decision to in the car leaving," she said.

She said she and Rodriguez did not consider themselves to be running from the law but instead leaving their life in Lexington.

"I was escaping Lexington in general because I knew I was losing my job," she said.

Peterson claims Rodriguez pursued her.

"I really cared about him. I wanted him to succeed," she said. "He was hanging with the wrong crowd always."

"He (Rodriguez) came to my class in probably October of my second year of teaching," Peterson said. "He became one of those students that hated to go home, didn't get along with his family and just wanted to hang out with whoever, so he would almost purposely get detention or find a reason to be after school in my classroom."

Peterson said Rodriguez sent her text messages the summer of 2006, after he was in her class. She said Rodriguez pursued her "like a man pursues a woman, and it was constant, constant."

"Eventually, I think I was emotionally worn down by him, and I gave in to thinking I had those same feelings for him," she said.

In interviews, Rodriguez told a different story. He said the relationship was "weird" because she was much older. He said Peterson wrote and called to express her love for him.

He said he wished the relationship had never happened.

"If I could go back in time, I would not, like, be with her," the youth said in a July interview with The World-Herald. "So she wouldn't get in trouble and none of this would happen, all of this drama thing."

Peterson said she moved to Gothenburg and rented a house that was three blocks from where Rodriguez was living. She said she did not know he lived nearby when she rented the house. After she moved, Rodriguez would show up at the house and hang out.

Over the summer of 2007, Peterson said, "We had become best friends."

Peterson said Rodriguez "practically lived with me" from June to October 2007.

"It was almost like a marriage," she said. "I know that sounds weird, but we were together all the time."

She said they did household chores and watched movies together, but she felt controlled by him — " I sometimes feel like I've been the victim in a lot of ways myself."

"Not that he hasn't been in some ways a victim," Peterson said. "When I say I crossed the line, I was a teacher, he was a student."

Peck, Rodriguez's attorney, said Peterson's claim of being a victim contradicts her statements in federal court "where she admitted that Fernando was not to blame." Peck noted that Peterson admitted earlier that the couple sneaked around behind Fernando's mom's back to see each other.

Peck said the evidence indicates that Fernando's discipline problems began only after the sexual relationship began.

"What child isn't going to act out when there is something this improper happening to him?" Peck said.

Peterson recalls saying goodbye to Rodriguez when they were in Mexico.

"The day we got arrested, we sat in a room for about four hours waiting for the United States to come and get me," she said.

"Fernando took a ring off my finger and put it on his, and he said, 'I'm going to wear this until you get out.' He looked at the officer and he said, 'I love her, and I'm going to marry her when she gets out, and I don't care how long she goes to jail.'"

She said both of them were crying.

"I told him I loved him, and we walked away."

In September, Peterson was sentenced to six years in federal prison on a charge of crossing state lines with a person younger than 18 to have sex. She waits in the Dawson County Jail to face the state charges, which could result in decades more prison time. Her trial has been scheduled for Jan. 13.

The Lexington native is facing state charges of two counts of sexual assault of a child, one count of felony child abuse and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Peterson said she understands that there will be penalties for her actions.

"I totally am OK with taking responsibility for my actions," she said. "I do believe that I deserve some kind of punishment."

Yet she said the case has been blown out of proportion "not just for me, but for him, for his family, for my family."

"It's not just me that's being punished here," Peterson said. "Everyone is being punished, and I don't know how fair it is to everyone else."

"I am so not excusing what I've done. I crossed the line as a teacher, and I know that."

World-Herald staff writer Cindy Gonzalez contributed to this report.

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