A high school softball coach in Ohio is facing several years in prison after being accused of multiple sex-related offenses with a 17-year-old student.
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31-year-old softball coach and teacher’s aide Ashley Rison has been accused of having sex multiples time with the student while she was working at New Miami High School, located in a suburb of Cincinnati.
Rison resigned from her position the day the alleged crimes were reported. “Ashley Ra-Nae Rison is no longer employed by the New Miami Local School Board. Effective May 3, 2021, Ms. Rison resigned from her position as Paraprofessional and Coach. New Miami Local Schools has no further comment at this time,” Superintendent Rhonda Parker told a local news outlet.
Ashley Rison via Butler County Sheriff’s Office
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At this time it is unclear whether the victim or another eye witness reported the crime to the police. However, the state claims to have recordings of Rison making incriminating statements to the victim.
“In addition to what the child tells us, we do have recordings between Ms. Rison and the child of where Ms. Rison makes multiple incriminating statements in asking, begging the child not to report her to the authorities,” Assistant Prosecutor Lindsay Sheehan said.
Butler County Prosecutor Mike Gmoser also noted, “It was discovered she was in a car with the [victim] and observed and it went from there.”
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According to court documents, Rison was charged with eight counts of sexual battery, tampering with evidence, and furnishing alcohol to an underage person.
According to Law & Crime, Rison reached a plea deal where she plead guilty to one count of sexual battery and two counts of gross sexual imposition. The Butler County Sheriff’s office indicates she’s currently in custody. It’s possible she could spend at least eight years in prison and have to register as a sex offender when she is sentenced in November.
Teachers committing sex crimes against students is an often underreported epidemic in the United States. While most Americans are aware of the many crimes committed by Catholic priests against young boys few are aware that sexual assault is far more prevalent in public schools than in Catholic ones.
Charol Shakeshaft, a researcher at Hofstra University, studied the problem in the early 2000s. She concluded that the sex abuse scandal in public schools was much worse. “[T]hink the Catholic Church has a problem?” she said. “The physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests.”
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I’m not Catholic or religious at all. I’m not making this comparison to excuse the heinous crimes Catholic priests committed. But if there is so much outrage about what Catholic priests did why is there not similar outrage for a much worse problem?
The problem of sexual abuse in public schools is compounded by the fact that parents are forced to send their children to these schools, unless they can afford to send their kids to a private school. Can you imagine the horror parents across the country would feel if they were forced to send their children to Catholic schools? Not just because of the concern regarding sexual abuse but also having to have your children indoctrinated into an ideology they may not agree with.
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Parents today are faced with a similar dilemma. Parents are forced to send their children to public schools where they will be indoctrinated into progressive ideologies and be statistically more likely to be sexually assaulted than they ever would at a Catholic School. It’s bad enough children barely receive any education at all in public schools, they should at least feel safe sending their children there.
Crimes like the one allegedly committed by Ashley Rison happen far too often. If we as a society cannot protect our kids from these type of assaults it may be time to radically re-imagine how we function.
Luckily, the prosecutor in this case did not take the situation lightly. “We take all felonies seriously, but I think we add a little extra seriousness to these positions-of-trust type offenses,” said Butler County prosecutor Mike Gmoser.
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