Crime & Safety

Former Moraga Teacher Pleads No Contest to Four Counts of Child Molestation

Julie Gay Correa, a former teacher and coach at Joaquin Moraga Intermediate School, pled no contest to four counts of child molestation Wednesday after an illicit relationship with a student in the late 1990s.

Former Moraga middle-school teacher and coach Julie Gay Correa pled no contest Wednesday to charges stemming from an illicit three-year sexual relationship with a student in the late 1990s, a spokesman for the California Attorney General's office said.

Correa, 42, entered no contest pleas to three counts of lewd and lascivious act with a child age 14 or 15 and one count of sexual penetration against a victim's will by means of force, fear, duress or menace.

The Salt Lake City resident had been charged with six counts of lewd acts on a child aged 14 to 15, three counts of forcible oral copulation, and three counts of forcible sexual penetration after she was arrested and taken back to California in mid-August of last year after a former student accused her of abuse.

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Correa was briefly jailed at that time but posted $1 million bail and returned to Utah later that month after entering a not guilty plea. The victim, now a 28-year-old Lamorinda resident referred to by prosecutors as Jane Doe, said she went to police after a deepening depression and reexamination of her relationship with Correa led her to realize it had been based on abuse.

Investigators said Jane Doe was a 12-year-old student at Joaquin Moraga when she first met Correa, then a 26-year-old teacher and coach at the school. Doe  told investigators Correa appeared to take an interest in her, and that eventually the relationship grew to include overnight trips and romantic correspondence.

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In 1996 Correa began giving the girl daily volleyball lessons, and the relationship turned sexual, investigators said. Eventually the girl's mother confronted Correa about the amount of time they were spending together and demanded that Correa stay away from her daughter. Doe told investigators she ended the relationship in 1999.

Doe also told police that she was afraid to end the relationship because Correa threatened to kill herself or Doe, threatened to "out" her as gay, and plied her with alcohol.

A sentencing hearing was set for Dec. 13.


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