Crystal River Learning Academy & Tara Salute - An Investigative Series - Part 1

Join us in Part 1 of the Crystal River Learning Academy & Tara Salute Investigative Series - Part 1.

Yes, I had to split this one up because there is so much information as well as answers/records I'm still currently waiting on.  Join our Facebook Community, follow us on Instagram and TikTok, and grab your Patreon membership to keep up to date.  

Blogs mentioned in the Podcast:

The Citrus Insider:  thecitrusinsider.com 

The Citrus County Chronicle: https://www.chronicleonline.com/ 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey, hey, hey, y'all. Welcome to the Graceful Truth Unscripted Podcast. I'm your host, Dana. Here we share raw, unfiltered stories regarding various different topics, which include mental health, foster care, adoption, and overcoming obstacles. We don't sugarcoat anything here. These are all real people telling their stories. So join me on this journey as everyday heroes and experts share their story. Alright, everybody, welcome back. Um this is actually my second go-around recording this. The first one completely didn't finish processing, so I'm hoping that this go-around will do it. Um first I want to get out of the way the warnings. This is an extremely sensitive content podcast. Um, we discuss some very adult things. Um so if you have little eyes or little ears, they need to be, I mean, it's up to you. I'm just warning you, this is adult conversations, explicit explicit uh stuff we are going to be discussing today. Um, so there's the warning for the little ears. Also, this could be considered a triggering um episode as well, um, because we do uh discuss very sensitive topics. Try not to say that that way. If you're listening to this now, you can go ahead and um pause this, get those ears out of the way. But we will be discussing um some sexual content on this podcast. Uh, and there is some graphic details in this um this uh podcast. So there's the warning for everybody. Make sure that you're old enough and all that jazz. So I was hoping to get this all done within one podcast. However, when I did the first one, we didn't I didn't quite get there because there is so much information to cover um and the facts uh to lay out for everybody that I was unable to get through both um all of the questions that we have answered and all this stuff. I was only able to cover the criminal aspect of this uh side of the podcast, and then I will do a follow-up podcast the following week with all of the other details. So tonight we're gonna be talking about um the case side of it, what the charges were, what the evidence was, um, the outcome of all of that, as well as some other I other reports that I have pulled and that are available for other people to pull. Um, and then we will cover the remainder of that, which I'll tell you about a little bit. I don't want to tell you guys stuff that you don't necessarily know the whole story yet, right? So some of you are here because you already know where this is going, and some of you this is brand new to you. You didn't even know it was happening. So um the reason why I'm in a hotel room recording this is because we uh are traveling uh for cheer competition. Um, after all, I am still a mother and a coach. Uh, so we are traveling and I was waiting to hopefully get some answers from some other people prior to releasing this podcast. Unfortunately, I didn't get that, and I also uh haven't received a uh records request that I had submitted yet. Um, so there is still some unanswered questions that hopefully by the following week I'll have all those answers and then can put it all nice little bow for you guys with what I found out. So let's start by discussing first uh what this podcast is going to be about. Today we are discussing um a case involving a teacher who taught in school, um, who actually was one of my teachers in school uh and ran our safety patrol program when I went to school many, many moons ago, um, and has taught up and through um 2012-ish, um, but had her teacher certificate active through 2015. Uh and she has since moved on from this incident and prior to opening um a private school, I guess you could call it. Um, I don't really know what funnel she's under, honestly. Everything that I've seen is a private school. Um, but anywho, before this, she was tutoring um within the last year, I think since the beginning of 2025. And then uh she had opened a school called Crystal River Learning Academy. And how I stumbled upon this story is um I am a homeschool mother. Um, and you know, all everybody's Facebook feeds or Instagram, whatever you go on, anything you search, like it knows who you are, it knows the content to show you. That's not a secret, that is proven. Sometimes you think something it pops up on your um your feed, right? Uh, but I am a homeschool mother, so one day I was scrolling on Facebook looking for updates and stuff like that, and a homeschool uh school popped up. And what caught my eye mainly was because they were sharing about Step Up. Now, Step Up is a scholarship program um for schools and uh for parents of children that either have unique abilities. If they're homeschooled, it's called PEP. It's personal education program, which is the two programs that she was advertising for and um stating she was an approved vendor for. Then there is a private school one, and then I think there's one, there's like a few other ones. Like there, there's it's one scholarship, but they have all different tiers, and different things make you make have requirements, you know, for you to number one, be able to qualify for that scholarship, but also there's regulations and um things that are required for you to be able to be a program um paid directly through this scholarship program. And these funds come these are government funds, and they do still uh I'm still muddy on the whole how much Florida Department of Education is involved in that, and that's one of the answers I'm hoping uh to obtain prior to the next one. So, anyway, this uh post comes up and stating that we are an approved provider. Um, make sure you get your applications in. We're having open uh some walkthroughs and open house essentially, and that they are a school that does before and after care, some home education classes, some regular schooling classes from 6:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Like this was all in this post um that she had, and so I didn't think anything of it or really read into it, honestly. Uh, it just came across my page because I am very heavily involved in step up groups and stuff, and all three of my children are on these scholarships, two are on UA and one's on PEP. Um, they're all homeschooled, so this just came across my page, and I did not personally go try and do the application or reach out or anything to ask about any of the classes. I want to make that clear. I did not because uh simply because it wasn't something that fit into our homeschooling um schedule as of right now. So it wasn't something that I was going to enroll my kids in any way because it was just not a service that I need as a homeschool mom. So I had seen this on like two or three days before my friend had shared the same exact post, and she was kind of confused as to how it was allowed to happen. And I had just seen like the first few words that says, How is how or somebody explained this to me? Um, I don't understand how this is able to be a thing. So I clicked on her post to read the entire thing and found out that she wasn't questioning how she could get approval for how a school can get approval for funding, which is where I thought she was going from, but that but she shared her criminal history um right there on uh in this post. So the school's director of Chris River Learning Academy, uh Tara Salute, was previously arrested for um, let me get the charge and read it exactly as it is because I do not want to misspeak especially on that. Um for uh unlawful sexual activity with a minor. That was the count one charge that she was charged with back in 2012. Uh so she had posted right on that the links directly to our county's um uh court records and it showed all of that, but interestingly interestingly enough, it also, if you searched her name, showed a bunch of other charges that will come into play with this case. Um so once that post was done. If you know me, I'm a true crime junkie, and I dove headfirst into pulling as much information as possible. And the part that kind of lit a fire under my behind is I am one that will protect any child no matter what. Like it doesn't matter that my children were not going to be benefiting or utilizing the service and or me as a mother. Um, it didn't matter to me because there's other people out there, including the workers that are at the school working for this woman, that didn't I I I can't confirm whether they knew or not, but we're gonna go under the assumption that they had no idea that uh what is it 14 years ago that this happened, right? So they assuming they are coming on, and now they're being pulled into this. So, in in all honesty, I consider them unfortunate and unfortunate victim in this whole set of circumstances. Um, so once I found that out, started diving into and looking everything up and all of that information and just getting some more information, I received a call from a friend who told me that somebody had reached out to her and she knew that I would get to the bottom of it because that's just that's just what I do. Um, and she knew that I would do um everything justice in researching and sharing what I found, um, as well as trying to figure out exactly how this was even possible that somebody who was charged with that type of crime was able to be around children. So um, for those of you that don't know, we in our local county there was actually a case many years ago um that came out with an act about child abusers, and it's called the Jessica Lunsford Act, but however, didn't apply in this case at all because uh of the age of the child. Uh, in order for the Lunsford Act to be um utilized and enforced, it has to be with a child 12 years old and under. Uh, so I'm just gonna put throw that out there. I will link all of this information for you guys, the Jessica Lunsford Act, the statute, all this stuff will all be linked in the show notes. Um, but anyway, let's get in to this whole um investigation because I've had very many people reach out to me asking me questions, sharing information, letting me know, you know, ins and outs of a bunch of different little things for me to go and then pull some more documentation, right? Uh so I thank all of those of you that have reached out. Um, if you still want to reach out to me and comment, that's fine because I still have another podcast I'll be putting together regarding this situation that's going to answer a lot of the questions that everybody has. How could she open a daycare? Why didn't they require a background check? Why isn't a teacher's certification um required? Like how was this even to happen? What are the steps when you go to step up? What happened was that all of those um everything will be answered, but most likely that'll be in the next podcast because, like I said, I've already recorded this once. It is a lot of information that is in this case. Um, and I want to be sure to do everything justice and give everybody a chance to respond to the emails that I have sent out and to the Publix Records requests and all that good stuff. So um I also want to thank those of you that have done that have helped with the Publix Records request, um, has talked me through like processes that your organization does. Um, and if there's still somebody out there, if I say something here that is maybe not necessarily something that everybody does, it may have just been like a one-off thing, please reach out to me. I am not a I've talked, I will talk to the prosecutor's office people, anybody who's worked in the prosecutor's office, any detectives, um, any if a defense attorney wants to come at me, that is fine too. I would love to hear that side of it as well. Um, as far as I can see, and I know this is gonna upset a lot of people, as far as I can see, because it upsets me and it pisses me off too, and the laws need to change. I'm just gonna say that. But everything was done as kosher as I can find. Do I feel like there are uh some holes or some things that were never followed up on, or we were a little light on certain things? Absolutely, and I will share that in the next uh podcast where I answer questions and even bring up more questions because there nothing's a hundred percent answered ever. So uh if you have any tips, information, questions, please reach out to me. You can um reach out on our Facebook page or you can email me at gracefultruthunscripted at gmail.com. All right, let's get into it. So you can go on the core website and you can do a public record request um to get all of this information. All of this information is public record, it is not anything that came about any other way. It's all public record, okay? Um, so quickly I'm gonna go through well, not really quickie. The the longest part of this is we did a public record request for all of um for the detective notes on the case and all the evidence that was collected that is eligible for public release, and we got it all. And as you can see, there's a lot of highlighting, which is the stuff I'm gonna share, and there's a lot of blacked-out information. The blacked-out information are witnesses' names, um, and the victim's name, which is all, and they're all juveniles, so that is why they're blacked out. We don't get to know their name. I don't want to know their name because unfortunately they were all victims in this. Um, and also, too, is a lot of it, some I'll be sharing the whole thing, a lot of you know that document, but there's some areas that I'm not sharing as much because it's it's pretty much two reports for everything. As you can see, this one's not highlighted really at all. Um, but two detective separate detectives witnessed the same recording, and as everybody knows, one detective may catch something that the other didn't, or a little bit more information about something, and that's essentially what this is. A lot of this is the same interviews, but different observations and a little bit more pieces to the puzzle, if you will. Um, so let's get into the investigative part of this first, um, and how this came to be about. So, back at and remember these dates, just put them in your memory bank. Uh, so the interviews with the victim and the defendant all took place on September 27th of 2012 and September 28th of 2012. Uh, the witnesses were a couple days later, um, but I'll explain that here shortly. So on September 27th, the Citrus County Sheriff's Office and the this first detective um received a crime stopper's tip. Uh, the tip explained that a known juvenile uh was having a sexual relationship with an adult Terra Salute. Um, so on uh the detective then took information from that tip. He made contact with the victim's mother uh and briefly explained to her that she had received information that her son may be the victim of a crime and that he uh needed to speak with her son. Uh he also advised her that a cell phone may have information on it that could have been sent by a suspect and asked for her permission to speak with her son, which was granted. Uh, and he also asked to be able to take the phone into evidence, which was also granted. Um, so she gave her permission for him to go speak with her son. Uh, and he then, once he received that permission, went to the high school in an attempt to make contact with the victim upon arrival. Obviously, he notified the school administration. A non-custodial interview was conducted with the victim at in the school resource officer area, and the interview was digitally recorded. Present during the interview was the detective, a deputy, um, which was uh the the school resource officer and a lieutenant. Um, initially, the victim would not disclose any information regarding the case. After both the deputy and lieutenant left the office, the victim explained to the detective that about three weeks ago, late in the evening, he had sexual intercourse um with the uh suspect later identified as Terra Salute. Um, the victim advised he was spending the night with his friend, uh, the son of the suspect, Miss Salute, and they both arrived in their vehicle to the house. Um, the victim explained while at the house he had consumed alcoholic beverages, and so did the suspect. And he advised at one point that Miss Salute drove some other teenagers home who had been present. When she returned, he said he could not sleep and went into the play game room, and Mrs. Salute came into the room and they had sex. Uh he then told the detective that he took a photo of her breast uh to show his friend that the sexual activity occurred. Uh and then he said that the picture of Miss Lute was still on his phone. The witness or the victim, I apologize, provided the cell phone to the detective. However, the battery was dead, uh, and he could not view the photos at that time. So on September 28th, uh after the charging the phone, he tried to, the detective tried to um view the photographs. The it was password protected. So uh they contacted the mother again to obtain the password, uh, so he could enter the password and obtain the evidence. So after obtaining the password and accessing the phone, the detective was able to view three images, which could be considered pornographic. Two of the images were of Miss Terrace the loot, the photos were of her upper torso, her breasts were visible, and the third image was a close-up of a vagina. On to the uh next, this is now this is a separate, that was one detective. This is another detective's report. Um, so on the 27th, the agency became involved with a sex offense case, with the nature of the allegations being that the defendant, a 40-year-old female, Miss Terrace Salute, had sexual intercourse with a minor, 16-year-old male. On 927 and 928, contact was made with the victim. The victim provided the sheriff's office with sworn audio recorded statements. The victim advised that he had sexual intercourse with the defendant at her residence and that this occurred one time in Citrus County, Florida. He also advised that this occurred approximately three weeks ago. Uh, the victim was able to provide graphic details of the sexual encounter. Um, on 928, uh, the detectives made contact with the defendant at her residence. Uh, they advised the defendant of the allegations and they read her uh her rights from the printed Miranda card. Um she acknowledged that she understood those rights, and then when asked if she wished to continue speaking with uh the detective, she said yes. She was asked if she ever had sex with a victim who uh the detective name, and she said no. The defendant initially denied the victim was ever in her home. However, the defendant later changed that statement. She did admit that the victim and a witness were drinking alcohol in her home, and she admitted to having at least four alcoholic drinks herself. She stated it's possible that she had too much to drink, blacked out, um, and could have had sex with the victim. The defendant later admitted that she did have sex with the victim at her residence. Um, and if afforded the chance to apologize to him, she would. Um at that point, the defendant was advised of her charges and charged with unlawful sexual activity with certain minors, a 16-year-old male. The defendant was placed under arrest and transported to the Citrus County detention facility for booking and processing. And her bond was set at$5,000 per the bond schedule. Okay, so the next report. I apologize, guys. This is a lot of information, but a lot of this is very relative. Um, on September 28th. Um again, we're back to the victim's residence. Um what this was the detective observing the other detective interviewing him. Um, so the I observed the other detective conducting a non-custodial digitally recorded interview with the victim. The victim repeated some of the same facts regarding his sexual contact with the suspect, Terry Salute, in much more graphic detail. Explained that after a football game, he received a ride from his friend to the suspect's son's house. Um they said the two began drinking beer that they brought with them a short time later. Miss Salute joined them and began drinking alcohol. Miss Salute then showed her breasts to both boys as well as other kids at the house. Uh the victim said she is known for doing that. The victim stated that every after everyone went to bed, he went into the game room and had sex with Tara. Uh the detective asked the victim to define sex, which is standard procedure. The victim explained that it is when you put your penis inside a woman's vagina. Uh, the victim told us that is what he did to Tara. He said they began kissing and then had sex. There was no oral sex. He went on to explain that Miss Salou climbed on top, on on top on him at first. Uh, and then she rolled over onto her back and he got on top of her. He said the sex lasted about an hour. He wore a condom. He stated that he did ejaculate and took the used condom off and threw it somewhere in the backyard. He said he retrieved another condom and returned to the game room and continued having sex. The victim said the sexual encounter was not forced by either party. The victim then went into the bathroom to clean up. He thinks he either flushed the second condom down the toilet or threw it away. The victim said he returned to the game room where Tara was lying naked. Um, the victim's friend told him he should take a picture of Tara's boobs and face to prove it really happened. The victim said he lifted up the sheet and took a picture of Tara's vagina. Um, and all three of those photos uh were uploaded into the evidence log. Uh, the victim was placed under oath and asked if he was completely truthful with what he told the detective on this date and what the interview he had with me, and he says, yes, he was. I asked if he was making this up for any reason. He said he was not, and he was able to describe what she was wearing the night that this occurred, and that was all on digital uh video. So uh the other detective's report had a lot of the very same information, um, but there was just a couple little differences that I wanted to point out. He said at no time did he force sex on Tara and she did not force sex on him. Uh he said after they finished having sex, he went to the bathroom, and when he returned, Tara was asleep on the futon and she was naked. The friend told him to take the pictures, so he took the pictures. Um, he also admitted to taking photographs of Tara using his cell phone. He stated he brought his own beer to the house, and Tara did not provide the alcohol to him. All right, on to the next report. Um this is uh the detective's report on September 28th in discussion with the defendant, Tara Salute. During the recorded interview, Tara stated that this is not the first time she was accused of this. Uh, the detective also learned that there were other people at the residence the night of the incident, which uh he would be reaching out to to interview them. And Tara described to the clothes that she was wearing, which matched the information provided by the victim. Tara also confirmed there's a futon in the game room, which she sometimes sleeps on. Uh the detective asked Tara if she did have sex with the victim. She said it's true and began to cry. She was then worried about being taken away in front of her children. Um, while on the way to jail, she stated that this is what she gets for drinking and that it's all her fault. Um the detective also listened to the phone calls that she placed uh from the booking area of the detention center. The first phone call was to her husband. During that call, she asked if he was coming to get her, and he told her no. Um, Mr. Salute told her that her mom was coming to get her. He also told her that the kids walked in on her and the victim, and that their son has pictures of her on his phone. Tara responded by saying, really, and did not deny what her husband just told her. She also never asked what kind of pictures that the child had. The second call was only to confirm somebody was outside to pick her up. So, and those were both uploaded into the evidence as well. Um, on another report about the interview with Tara, uh, later during the interview, she admitted that she did have sex with a victim and she should face the consequences. Um, the interview was recorded, and Tara told us that this is not the first time she was accused of this. Everything else was very much similar to the other detectives, so there was no point in going through all that. Um, then they interviewed the witnesses. So this was on October 1st, uh, was the first interview uh with a witness um who was at the suspect's residence the night of the incident. They got permission from the parents to interview him and all that stuff. So that's all in here stating that fact. Um, and he the witness did state that he was willing to talk to the detective. Uh, so this witness said that the victim showed him a video that was on Miss Tara's phone. It was a 30-second video of the victim and Tara kissing. He said it looks like they were out on the patio, which is near the game room. He did not see anything else. He stated that the victim and Tara went into uh Tara's daughter's bedroom and said that he heard that another witness kicked into the door to this bedroom. Uh, this witness confirmed that there is a futon in the game room. Um, and then the victim was placed under oath to make sure, and he stated that he was telling the truth. Um again, this witness's testimony was also recorded as well. Then on October 2nd, there was another witness that they discussed and got all the details and information, all that stuff. This witness agreed to discuss the case with them. Um one of the witnesses asked this witness to kick the door of the bedroom down. He said he kicked it twice. The second time the door opened, and either I would assume it's the victim closed it. Um he said that he and a witness then went back to the patio area. A few minutes later, the victim and Tara came out and hung out for a while, but then went into the game room. Um the witness said that the victim did take pictures of Tara. When asked to describe those pictures, he said they're of Tara's face, hickeys on her neck, and boobs. Um, and then on October 2nd, uh they went back to the victim to confirm some of this information. Uh, and they asked the victim if there was a time where he and Tara were kissing on the patio, and they said that they were. He said after they were kissing for a while, he told Tara they should go somewhere private. Tara suggested they go to the daughter's room. Tara then took the victim into the daughter's room and closed the door. The victim said they were in there for about 20 minutes making out. While in this bedroom, he gave Tara hickeys on her neck after they went to the game room because a witness interrupted them by kicking in the door. I asked about the pictures on the phone, and he said he did take them and he showed them to a bunch of people. It's it's a big, huge line of blackout. So he showed them to quite a few people, and that was the end of that. Um on October 10th, there was a witness interview. Um, all I gather that this is the sun, and you'll see why when I read this. Um, but I can't 100% confirm because again, the names are blacked out. So on the 10th, um they asked this witness if they knew why he was there. He said it's because of what happened. He clarified the statement by all of the during, you know, he clarified exactly what they were talking about. Um, during the phone call, uh the father took the phone from him and told this witness not to talk with anything about this. The witness said he hadn't discussed it with anybody. He did say that somebody showed him two photos of Tara. One was of her face and boobs, and one was of a female's vagina. I asked if he and Tara were ever intimate. He said no. He denied ever kissing her or having sex with her. This witness said he went to the house a lot. Um, and on several occasions, Tara would provide him with alcohol and he would sometimes get drunk. He said he's uh she has also given him cigarettes and smoked marijuana with him. He remembers a time they were smoking a pot from a bong and he blew that smoke into Tara's mouth. Um, he asked if there was a game room in the house, and he said yes. He asked how it was furnished, he mentioned the futon, uh, and then he gave the detective gave this witness the card. Now, the father's name of this witness is um Tom Salute, which was Tara's husband. So that is why I believe that portion of it is from the son, but again, I can't confirm or any of that. All right, so then on um February 28th of 2013, uh another detective report uh who viewed the video evidence similar, or the not the video, sorry, the um recordings of the jail phone calls, uh, did his summary of them. Uh, and he stated that the defendant, Tara Salute, called her home and spoke with her husband, Tom Salute, during the conversation. Mr. Salute told his wife that their son walked in on her. He also said that Blank told him everything and that there are pictures of her on Blank's phone. I don't know the names of those because they're blacked out, obviously. Um, and that was basically his review of said documents. Now, those are all of the reports on the um on the case. So those are all the detectives' reports between the defendant, all of the witnesses, and um uh the audio recordings of her. So now let me try and get organized over here. I have stuff everywhere. Uh so that is a lot of information, and there are a lot of things in there that were repeated multiple times in different ways. Um, and one of them happened to be the fact that alcohol was a factor. So when I pulled up her criminal history, this is not the only thing on her record. There were some tickets, but there is also numerous DUIs on there. One was an accident where um she uh she was driving under the influence. That's about all I can say. You can go look it up. It's right all, it's it's all right there, right on public record. Um, so she did have a history of drinking. That is confirmed in the um in her court records. Okay. Uh the other thing that I do want to talk about and provide to you guys is um you can go uh to the this is the my Florida teacher. Uh so if you're in Florida, there's an area you can go and you can search any reprimands that a teacher has received. You can check the status of their license and all that, all of all of the things, okay. Um this uh there's actually two reprimands or or orders or set this one's a settlement agreement, the other one was a final order. Um but in 2012, uh it looks like the investigation most likely started in July of 2012, but this um settlement agreement slash letter of reprimand was dated, signed and dated um July 12th or July 2nd of 20 and 2012, and then the final uh order of the settlement agreement was um put in place in September. September 27th of 2012, which is when this investigation took off. Um, and in this settlement agreement, um, and I'll share the report, I'm not gonna read through everything on here, but basically she was placed on two years of um probation and had to go through a treatment program uh designated by an RP, which is a recovery network program. Um, so she had to go through a recovery network program, and whatever they suggested, she had to then do. Um, and this came basically from a complaint that she was drinking on the job. They found alcohol in her coffee cup sitting on her desk. Um, somebody else thought it was their coffee cup, mistakenly picked up one and realized that it was alcohol in the cup. So that letter of reprimand was placed in her file as part of a settlement agreement. Um the details of that will be posted so you can pull up the order and read it yourself. Uh, and then in 2015, um the order, so February 5th of 2015, the order uh regarding um that was placed the final order that was placed on this date was in response to this particular case that we're discussing. Uh so a part of the um the other the 2012 letter of reprimand, a part of that was she was no longer allowed to drive any um students in her vehicle. So that is very standard on any teacher who is ever pulled over for a DUI, whether it's on school grounds or not. Um and you can look all those up again. Uh have some people I can tell you to go pull their letter of reprimand, but you can literally just go to that and just pull up everybody's, it doesn't matter. Uh so on February 5th of 2015, February 5th, 2015. This case started in September of 2012. And the final judgments, she was released from probation. Um I I have that date there, but just again, this final order was signed February 5th of 2015. Um that the panel decided to the to permanently revoke and permanently revoke her teaching certificate, and she was also permanently barred from applying for another Florida educator certificate. So that was in 2015. Um so then I have lots of screenshots. Shots and all sorts of stuff. Notes everywhere. So let's go through. So the investigation is done. That was regarding her teaching certificate. So in 2015, her teaching certificate was permanently revoked. However, in 2012, she was reprimanded and put on probation for two years because of the drinking incident at school. So the pretrial release terms, a lot of this was pretty standard. She shall not possess or use any alcoholic beverages. She shouldn't, and she couldn't enter an establishment that serves alcoholic beverages. From all accounts, this looks like actually this was a part of the previous incident, what the RF recommended. And that's just me putting it together. I do not have confirmation that that's why she was in this treatment facility. But the motion to continue it within the court system was because she was in that recovery center. Um then there was a motion continue in July of 23 because a dis uh deposition uh was missed because somebody failed to appear. So that was rescheduled. And then um in set on September 9th of 2013 is when the plea deal was entered. Now, a little caveat to a plea deal. When I spoke with prosecutor's office, they stated that a plea deal can pretty much come um from anywhere. It's not like how we see it on the TV shows where it's like written out and they have to sign it and all this stuff. It could be brought up by a judge, it could be brought up by the defendant, it could be uh or their counsel, it could be brought up by the prosecutor. Um, it could be verbally, it could be over the phone, it could be handwritten to where they have to sign all of that stuff. So a plea deal can pretty much come from anywhere. A lot of reasons plea deals happen are because either um the prosecutor's evidence may not be as strong, they may not want to put a witness on the stand, make them relive all of this stuff. Uh, sometimes witnesses, especially teenagers, do not want to testify because of many different reasons. They don't want to get somebody in trouble, they don't want to keep reliving. Um the thing, there's a lot of stuff going on, and they just want it to go away. They've already talked and told their side of the story, so they don't want to get on stand and tell their story. We don't know what happened. I can speculate and state based off all the reports that I read, and um can kind of undertone sense tell that the victim did not really want to talk about it. Um, he was very held back at first, and then every interview after that, there was more and more information coming out. Um, so it's various different reasons of anything that could happen. Um, this also was a first offense for her. Um so there's nobody can answer why this plea deal came about, right? Um, only the the only people that know are the defendant, the defense attorney, and the prosecutor. Like, and those are the only and the judge, which has since passed on. So um she entered a plea of no contest. Uh, the maximum possible penalty for unlawful sexual activity with a minor was 15 years imprisonment and/or a$10,000 fine. Um the Citrus Insider did a really good article of like laying out everything in her plea agreement uh cost-wise. Uh so I will link, like I said, all of that stuff for you guys to go read yourself. I'm not gonna sit here and redo work that he's already done for me. So um there was a bunch of other stuff. However, she was not allowed to have unsupervised contact with any child under the age of 18 unless related um to the second degree of consanguity, which I will look that up for you guys. I meant to look it up before I got on here, but I forgot. Um, until the completion of the drug and alcohol evaluation and treatment, um, the defendant will not be alone in the present of any or child, not related in the second degree of consanguity, and the defendant shall be allowed to travel to and from Marion County for her children's school, sports, and extracurricular activities. Right there, I have an issue with that. And again, I'm sure this is standard language and standard whatever. However, she was not allowed unsupervised contact with any child other than her children that were under the age of 18, yet she can go to her children's schools, so I have to assume that there was always another adult with her at all times, because otherwise she would have contact with children under the age of 18. Because I don't know about you, but when I go to a sporting event, there's children everywhere. Okay, okay. Um her probation, uh, her order of probation is based off of her score sheet. Again, Citrus Insider had the score sheet. I'm gonna link that in here. You can go there and click on it. He has it all nice and easy for you to download there and look at his at the score sheet. But a score sheet basically tells the judge um the the length of the crime, how how severe versus how not severe it was. Um, and it all it's all a point system depending on various different aspects of it. So she received three you her plea agreement um went from the unlawful sexual activity with a minor, and she was actually charged with uh child abuse without great bodily harm, which was still a felony, not a misdemeanor, it was still a felony. Um, and she received three years of probation. Um, and standard probation things are are all in here, but they can't violate any law, they can't associate with anybody, and they can't um also engage in any criminal activity. Um, you will not possess drugs, narcotics, intoxicants, intoxidants, or any of that type of stuff, you should not be participating in. You were to go undergo a drug and alcohol evaluation. Um you will abstain from the use of alcohol and illegal drugs, and you won't associate with anybody using illegal drugs or consuming alcohol. You will not visit an establishment where the primary business is the sale of disposing alcohol beverage. Essentially, you can't go to a bar. Um, and then of course, all the other standard things in there. The reason I highlighted those types of things, and she was placed on probation September 11th, 2013. Uh, that's when that order was signed. However, I know probations from my history alone, but also I I know people in the probation world as well. Um, not every probation officer is great. A lot of them are just there to do what they have to do, and that is what it is. Um, in our instance, DCF ended up testing the person that we had on probation, and you can get that in our our previous stories about her family on the podcast, but they informed that uh the probation officer that she tested positive for drugs. Probation officer did not go and pull the report and/or did not pull her in for his own testing. All he had to do was call the hospital and get the testing and could have violated her. So I know that pro not all probation officers do their job at 100%. That's all I'm gonna say because I have no proof otherwise that she did not follow her probation conditions, um, because they did modify her probation conditions about um being going undergoing a drug and alcohol evaluation because she was already in a treatment program and has success and at this time has successfully completed it and was still attending weekly meetings. And then um the defendant will be accompanied by a third party who can include her children when she's the in in the presence of any minor child not related in the second degree contiguity, or however you say that word. Here's where I have an issue with that. Number one, in all of that reporting, all of these children, including her own children, were present at this party that this happened at. Because clearly alone, there were multiple witnesses, multiple people that saw this take place, and she's been accused of this more than once from her own words. But yeah, let's let her children supervise her around minor children. I have an issue with that, and that's that's just all what I'm gonna say. Uh, and then she um submitted for or her her defense attorney submitted for the early release of probation on September 9th of uh, or that began September 9th of 2013. They submitted this um in 2015, where she actually served a year and seven months on probation. This is very standard um from what I've been informed by the prosecutor's office that most every probation is typically terminated, or they can request for it to be terminated if they haven't violated it after they've completed 50%. And she did a little bit over 50%. So this is actually just standard, it's not there's nothing out of the ordinary on that. Um, and then that is pretty much all the documentation, really. I mean, there's a lot of documentation out there. Some things that don't really, I mean, they're they're procedure, right? So they don't really have that much information contained in them, so it's not worth just sharing with you. You can see all this on the public records um from the courthouse. So this here's what's one part I want to explain to you, and then I'm gonna wrap up the what exactly happened. What she was charged with, the investigative side of this, and we'll get into the rest of that the next podcast. Um, police officers go in and they arrest versus probable cause. There's a high chance that they know that you did this, and they assign a charge um to that case. Once um everything is gathered and everything, it's then turned over to the state attorney's office. And the state attorney's office goes in, they check to see what the sheriff's office um turned in. They uh go out and do their own interviews with the victims and the witnesses and the subject, uh, the suspect as well. They review all of the evidence, so all of those recordings, all of the reports, everything they review. Um, and once they've done their investigation into the case, they then charge um the suspect with whatever it qualifies for, right? So they're the ones that confirm yes, we have enough evidence to charge this, and this is what the charge is, or they can change it, they can add charges, they can remove it. The state attorney's office is what physically actually charges formulate formally um the suspect, and that's based on the evidence and interviews and all that other stuff that they do on their own. Um, so again, everything was as far as we can tell, right? Um, it it was completed well within um the laws. Now, does that mean the laws are are perfect? No, absolutely not. This shouldn't like this should never have gotten to where it got to, which is she's opened a daycare or not a daycare, I apologize, a school for kindergarten through twelfth grade. Let me pull up on the notes uh because before I got blocked from everything. I wanted to make sure I had everything right. Um, so she is the founder. This is on their page, founder right here. Um, she has some reviews written by some parents. Um they are putting on a golf tournament, which we will be covering as well. Um they have a mission. Our mission is to bridge the educational gaps by providing personalized learning opportunities that meet students where they are, support diverse learning styles, and foster academic growth with confidence. Um, their vision is a future where education is personal, every every student is truly seen, and learning prepares uh children for life, not just school. And I do agree with all that because I feel like we need to set our kids up for success, and all of our children um do learn differently. So um let me keep going. I think there was I had some more of what the school does. I have all the information on the golf tournament. Uh here was her step up for students um announcement, and then um basically kind of what they are. They're officially approved to accept Step Up for Students scholarship funds directly. Because what happens with Step Up is there's two ways that um StepUp pays. So they can pay a provider directly, or the parent pays out of pocket, and then we submit a reimbursement and get the funds back to us. Um, but right here it says Chris River Learning Academy is officially approved to accept Step Up for student scholarship funds directly. We are now enrolling for the 2026-2027 school year, serving full-time students, part-time students, and homeschool families, as well as students needing specialized um instruction. So, in all aspects, this looks like they're opening a private school, not just a home education school. Um so uh that's kind of I just wanted to lay all of this stuff out for you, the the case of it. And simply, number one, we're already about an hour in, and so I'm going to um end this here. But number two, I haven't gotten answers back from people I really want answers from, and I still want to pull up some more information before I get into answering the questions of how was she able to open this business, be a 501c3, get the funding approved with step up. You know, there's unfortunately there's a lot of victims in the aftermath of all of this. But if she would have just gone and worked anywhere else that did not involve students, like the Home Depot or Lowe's or a bakery or a restaurant, like anything that didn't involve children and having one-on-one contact or a very small group of kids, that this wouldn't be a thing. But she didn't, she chose to go and work with children after all of this has happened. Um, I don't know about you, but I would never trust my kid anywhere near this this individual. Um, and and my I'm set out to protect the children. Um, and I'll be sharing a lot more of that type of stuff on the next um episode. But I did want to get all of this out here um as best I can to you, so you guys kind of know what's going on and what we're waiting on. Um but also keep in mind that this is a this is this is something that should only be judged on the one uh that not judge, but um she miss salute terra salute is the one that committed this crime. She paid the consequences for this crime. The law did not require her to register as a sex offender, um, and that is the law because it was a first offense and it was an older child. Uh, but that does not mean that this person should be around children. Okay. And this is also the only person that we are talking about. We are not trying to drag children, the children into this, the victims, um, the the employees that she has working at this learning academy. The those are all employees that are unfortunately also victims in the story that they possibly didn't know of. Probably it's about like 90% probably, they had no idea about any of this. Um, and she just continues to do things that just are not number one, ethical uh and two, legal, because she if you go back um into Step Up's response uh on one of our posts, I shared the Chronicles article about Step Up's response, and they pulled her funding because they found that it was fraud and abuse. She submitted uh somebody else's teaching certificate. So I would I don't know whose that is. I can only assume that it was one of the teachers that work for her. Um, and she also did not submit other details that are required by the um step up uh that run through the Department of Education. So I'm gonna have all of that laid out for you on the next episode, and we'll we'll get into how she was able to do all of this um pretty much legally, except for the step up part. That was the only thing that was not legal, it was fraud. Um, how she was able to be an approved vendor. Uh, so I will do all that covering. If you know of anything or have any insight into step up, or you have um something you wish to discuss with me, uh, like I said, please reach out to us either on Facebook, Instagram, or you can email me at gracefultruthunscripted at gmail.com. Um, I will talk to you guys later. Spread the sunshine wherever you go. See ya. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Graceful Truth Unscripted podcast. If you haven't already, make sure you subscribe to our podcast wherever you're listening so you don't miss an episode. Also, if you feel called to, please do leave us a review. We love hearing your feedback. If you have a story or wish to share, please reach out to us on our Instagram or Facebook page Graceful Truth Unscripted. As always, spread the sunshine wherever you go. See ya.