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In her first public words since the scandal that shook her small town, 24 year old Allena Ward asked for forgiveness Thursday. “Today, I publicly admit my guilt,” she told a crowded courtoom. The former teacher’s tears comes months after she was arrested on charges she had sex with several students. In court, Ward pleaded guilty to six charges against her. One of those encounters even included having sex in her Bell Street Middle School classroom.

For the first time, explicit details of Ward’s relationships with five boys were made public. Solicitor Jerry Peace read entries from her diary, found in her school desk. “I don’t want to hurt his feelings,” it reads. “It is risky and so wrong. God help me.”

None of the victims were there to face their former teacher in person. Attornies say their lives have been forever scarred. “Their mindset has been damaged basically for the rest of their lives, and in fact, it is a life sentence on these kids.”

Whether it will be a life sentence for Ward, is now up to a judge. Her sentencing could be held in the next four to six weeks.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A former teacher was charged with having sex with a teenage boy, the third teacher in the same county accused of such crimes in the past year and a half, authorities said Monday.

Karen Robbins, 49, was arrested over the weekend and charged with three counts each of criminal sexual conduct with a minor and committing a lewd act on a child. The sex occurred with a 15-year-old in her car and twice at her home between September and November 2005, according to arrest warrants.

Robbins was a private school teacher at the time, and officials said the accusations did not involve one of her students.

Robbins was released from jail on a $90,000 bail.

Messages left at a telephone listing for a Karen Robbins in Clinton and with the county public defender’s office were not immediately returned.

Police said they began investigating after school officials turned over letters in July found at Bell Street Middle School, where Robbins worked during the 2006-2007 school year.

Earlier this month, Allena Ward, also a former Bell Street Middle teacher, pleaded guilty to having sex with five teenage boys, some of them students where she taught.

Wendie Ann Schweikert, a former elementary school teacher in Laurens County, was sentenced in June to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to having sex with an 11-year-old student. Ward has not yet been sentenced.

“You’re concerned as a parent. You’re concerned as a citizen and concerned as a prosecutor that these events keep being uncovered,” said solicitor Jerry Peace, who prosecuted Ward and Schweikert.

The now-17-year-old boy in Robbins’ case, a former student at Bell Street Middle, is cooperating with authorities, Peace said.