A former beauty pageant queen was jailed after it was discovered that she had been sending naked Snapchat photos to a teenage boy. Former Miss Kentucky Ramsey Bearse, 29, will spend two years in prison for sending the snaps to a student at Andrew Jackson Middle School in Kanawha County, West Virginia, where she was teaching at the time.
- Ramsey Bearse began talking inappropriately with the boy when he was 14. According to the unnamed victim’s mother, it’s unclear how the relationship between the two even began given that the boy, who’s now 16, wasn’t a student in one of Bearse’s classes. His mother also revealed that her son will need long-term counseling as a result of the abuse from Bearse.
- Bearse has accepted responsibility for her actions. She pleaded guilty to one count of possession of material depicting minors in sexually explicit conduct in December 2019, one year following her December 2018 arrest. Kanawha County Circuit Judge Duke Bloom sentenced her to two years behind bars, which will begin on Monday when she must turn herself in by 10 a.m.
- The judge believes her sentence was lenient but that time behind bars was “appropriate and important.” Bloom said in summarizing that he believed Ramsey Bearse displayed a “lack of any acceptance of responsibility,” adding, “You were in a position of trust, you violated the trust of this student and that is not acceptable.”
- Bearse says she’s sorry for her actions, which has caused her depression and cost her career. “All I can say is that I take full responsibility for my actions and I am sorry,” she told the judge before sentencing. “I’ve never, ever done anything like this before and I promise you, your honor, I never, ever will again.”
- Ramsey Bearse’s lawyer’s defense for her isn’t that great. Defending attorney Tim Dipiero claims that Bearse “already received a life sentence” since she will be on the sex offender registry moving forward. He also claimed that the victim had worse content than what Bearse had sent him on his phone. In other words, what Bearse did isn’t that bad, right? Wrong!
- She’ll be on parole for 10 years after her release. Just as she should be. This wasn’t a lapse of judgment, this was abuse and manipulation of a minor.
