COVINGTON, Ky. - Jurors should begin deliberations Friday in the sex crimes trial of a former Dayton High School teacher.
Nicole Howell, 25, is charged with first degree sexual assault for allegedly having four or five sexual encounters with a 16-year-old boy.
However, she took the stand in her own defense Thursday and denied having any sexual relationship with the teenager. Howell taught freshman and sophomore English at the school, but the boy was not in any of those classes. She said she got to know him because he played on the football team and she was an assistant cheerleading coach.
"Did he ever touch you?" defense attorney, Eric Deters asked during his direct examination.
"No," Howell testified.
"Did you ever tell him you wanted to," Deters continued.
"No," the defendant replied.
"Did you ever send him an e-mail?" Deters wanted to know.
"No," came the standard response.
It was the same answer to questions whether Howell sent the teen a photograph of herself, wrote him a letter, held his hand or kissed him.
Howell did admit originating some text messages to the boy or answering his text messages to her. However, she said they were only supportive of his football efforts.
"I never ignored him or turned him away," she added.
In fact, Howell said she sent text messages to lots of students to be a confidant to teens who needed someone to listen to their concerns.
"Anyone in that school building can some to me and tell me if they need to talk to someone," she said directly to jurors. "I’d be more than happy to talk to them. I wouldn’t care if it was 4:00 a.m. every single time."
Earlier, Howell’s stepfather, Edward Baer, testified that he said the teenager could have been in Nicole’s apartment, but added he believes her statement to the contrary.
"If she said he was never there, he was never there," Baer stated.
Asked if he felt it was appropriate for Nicole to text a 16-year-old boy at 1:30 a.m., Baer said, "It’s okay."
He added he doesn’t find it shocking that she sent over 400 text messages to the teenager.
Howell’s former roommate, Tony Case, who shared a Covington apartment with her, took the stand and said she never talked about students at Dayton High School and had never hear of the teenager with whom she allegedly had intimate relations.
Case admitted that because he often worked late as a cook, then went to bars and got up at noon, it would be possible for someone to have entered or left the building without his knowledge.
Another defense witness was Chris Manor, Howell’s current boyfriend.
Manor testified that he never noticed anything about Nicole’s behavior that would indicate she was seeing another man.
"No suspicion?" he was asked?
"Never," Manor stated.
As the prosecution wound down its case Thursday morning, Covington Police Detective Bryan Frodge said it was his opinion that the teenager had been in Howell’s apartment, and that she had lied to him when she said she never had contact with the boy outside of school.
