00:00:00
He didn't look like a 15-year-old boy. He didn't act like a 15-year-old boy. He said that they were friends, but that nothing had happened.
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The text messages are the truth. She was a 33-year-old high school tutor. He was her 15-year-old student.
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He was in love. But after his mom found this on his phone, police knew this was no innocent teenage crush.
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He said that they had sex on several different occasions. It was an illegal relationship.
00:00:32
A horrible crime to be accused of. But she insisted he wasn't the victim. She was.
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I was petrified of him. Petrified. She says he forced himself on her. Did you ever have consensual sex with him?
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Never. Prosecutors said she was lying. She was insulted that you didn't believe her.
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I was insulted that she thought someone would. A tutor and her pupil. Breaking all the rules.
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But who was telling the truth? We both knew what we were doing was wrong. He owned me.
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I never have had as much evidence against someone as I had in this case. I'm Lester Holt and this is Dateline.
00:01:13
Here's Keith Morrison with Dangerous Liaisons. You two were in cahoots to try to get...
00:01:20
It didn't have to end here. He keeps stating things that he has no evidence for as though it's fact.
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With attorneys at war. You've got the evidence. No, don't just say that. It was the theater of the absurd.
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I want to know who it is. Detectives upset. I thought it was disgusting. I thought it was just really horrible the way they dragged that family through the mud.
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Nor did there have to be a sobbing witness. I'm trying to be honest up here and it's so disrespectful.
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Just a minute. Even a judge. This thing is getting totally out of control. Visibly on edge.
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And beginning to lose it a little bit. Victim bashing. No, it didn't have to turn into a battle royal, played out in public court for all the world to see.
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Emotions can be high. It didn't have to go that way at all. Or end this way. We the jury on count one?
00:02:07
Oh my God! That's all hindsight now. Where a person begins a story as twisted and strange as this one can seem arbitrary, perhaps.
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But in this case, to us it made sense to begin on a Friday morning in April 2013
00:02:28
in the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan, when a phone rang on the desk of Detective Amy Lowry.
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It was a call from an attorney who reported that a mother of a high school sophomore
00:02:40
had seen something that couldn't be unseen. The boy's mother had suspected something and had taken his phone in
00:02:50
because it was broken and had the information transferred to another phone to view what was on his phone.
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And what was on it? Well, besides the flood of texts and photos you'd expect to see on any teenager's phone,
00:03:06
was this. It was grainy but unmistakable. A scantily clad woman. A woman clearly much older than the boy.
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The photo, along with the accompanying text messages, longing, urgent, breathless, left no doubt whatsoever in the mind of the detective.
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Immediately it was evident that there was a romantic relationship going on. So how did you view that from a legal and ethical and moral point of view?
00:03:33
Well, obviously it needed to be investigated. Detective Lowry was experienced in matters like the one before her now.
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She's a Grand Rapids police detective, but for nearly a decade has been assigned to the Children's Assessment Center
00:03:45
as one of five full-time investigators working on cases involving the sexual abuse of children.
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Five people full-time in a town that's on the Grand Rapids, it tells you something, doesn't it?
00:03:59
Correct. Do you find that dispiriting? Very. I mean, I think most people would find it dispiriting,
00:04:07
the amount of cases that we have to investigate of this nature. But this one needed to be investigated not only because of what the detective saw on the phone.
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No, it was more than that. The lawyer who called the detective worked for the Catholic Diocese of Grand Rapids
00:04:23
and told her the young man in question was a student and star athlete here at Grand Rapids Catholic Central High School.
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And the woman worked here. She wasn't just any school employee. She was the student's school-appointed tutor.
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She is a person of authority. It's obviously an inappropriate relationship. I knew that she was in her 30s and that he was only 15 years old.
00:04:47
So regardless, it was an illegal relationship. Detective Lowry went over to see the boy's parents.
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Had they questioned their son? No, the mother hadn't questioned her son at all. I think she was unsure how to bring it up.
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She knew that he would most likely be angry about it. She wanted somebody to put a stop to this.
00:05:07
Absolutely. So next, the detective went to Catholic Central High School, and after meeting with the administrators,
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pulled the young man, then a sophomore, out of class, middle of the afternoon. What did he tell you?
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Initially, he denied that there was any relationship taking place. He said that they were friends, but that nothing had happened.
00:05:30
You knew that wasn't so. Right, based on the text messages. Did you explain that to him?
00:05:36
I did. I read him some of the text messages, and that's when he admitted that there was a sexual relationship.
00:05:44
It often goes that way with a teenager, said Detective Lowery, as any parent of one would understand.
00:05:50
Stages of denial which in this case over a series of interviews finally gave way to what the boys seemed to see as the crux of the matter He thought that they should be allowed to have the relationship you know because he was mature enough and they loved each other and should be together
00:06:08
It's very common that they don't see themselves as a victim in this. That's where it all gets kind of strange, doesn't it?
00:06:14
Yes. And now, it was time for the detective to talk to the tutor at the center of the case,
00:06:21
the one in that photo in the cell phone. Abigail Simon. One of the many things the detective wanted to know was who made the first move.
00:06:33
When we return, the tale of the tape. But what was true and what wasn't? Who initiated it?
00:06:40
You never had sex. I know you had sex. He told me that. I want to know who initiated it.
00:06:46
I'm not answering that. A cloud darkened the joy of spring in Grand Rapids, Michigan that April of 2013.
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The mother of a sophomore at one of the city's most prestigious high schools, Catholic Central,
00:07:11
had found this photo on a cell phone her son had been using. He couldn't just let it go. He was 15. The woman was his tutor.
00:07:19
And so before long, Detective Amy Lowry was assigned to figure out what was going on.
00:07:26
The fact that the adult was female, the child male, didn't really make any difference to her.
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I think there's a double standard in society where they view females in this situation as victims,
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but I think a lot of society just doesn't feel the same way about boys. There are consequences to this type of relationship, you know, even with boys.
00:07:47
But remember that series of interviews and shifting stories from the boy? When the detective got him to admit there was something between them,
00:07:56
an affair consummated in the tutor's gleaming high-rise condo, the boy announced that it was he who started it, not her.
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That it wasn't her fault. So what would the tutor, Abigail Simon, say? You're not a nurse, okay?
00:08:12
You're free to leave, but there's something that we need to talk about. Okay. All right.
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And when Miss Simon heard that text messages were in question, she knew why the detective was there.
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That pupil of hers. Do you know who I'm talking about now? Okay. We've just become close this year.
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I tried to help him change his life around. But when the subject turned to the specifics of their relationship,
00:08:39
which the detective felt was plainly outlined in those racy texts and photos, well, a surprise.
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He calls you baby girl, you call him baby boy. Do you think that's appropriate? No.
00:08:53
I care so much for him. I do. I adore him. I don't even know what to say about it.
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Who initiated it? I mean, we never actually had sex. I know you had sex. He told me that, and I can read the text messages.
00:09:10
That's not a question of whether you guys had sex or not. I want to know who initiated it.
00:09:15
Her response was, well, I don't know what your definition of sex is. It's a little Clinton-esque, isn't it?
00:09:28
I would agree with that, yes. So did she tell you then what her definition was? No, she ended the interview.
00:09:36
That was it? Correct. The detective confiscated Abby's iPhone. And later that very day, the Diocese of Grand Rapids fired her from her job as a tutor.
00:09:47
Also, she was, by police order, told not to have any contact whatsoever with the young man.
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Detective Lowry continued her investigation, and before long was approached by other people at the school,
00:10:00
saying they had concerns about Ms. Simon for a while. Some of the teachers felt her behavior was inappropriate around some other students.
00:10:08
So then Detective Lowry sought out those other students and heard something else may have happened,
00:10:14
something with another young man. There was another boy who said there was an incident in the library
00:10:20
where they were talking, they were flirting, which they had for some time, and he kissed her.
00:10:27
And did she tell him to stop, go away? This is inappropriate? He described it as a short kiss,
00:10:32
and he said that, you know, that can't happen again, and she says, no, it can't,
00:10:36
And that was the end of the story. As investigators dug deeper, another detective joined the case.
00:10:43
Dave Gillum called in for his uncanny ability to plumb a cell phone for almost anything it's ever done.
00:10:50
On Abby Simon's iPhone, that was not an easy thing to do. She had erased most of the text messages between her and the victim.
00:10:59
and I was able to recover many of them. We don't know how many there were, but we did recover thousands and thousands of text messages.
00:11:11
And this is material that had been erased, material she chose to erase. Correct.
00:11:15
What did that imply to you? She was hiding it. She knew that it was not something that she would want people to see,
00:11:22
and so she deleted it. The sun soon set on another school year. Abby moved back to her parents' place at two-hour drive from Grand Rapids.
00:11:31
Summer came, and then the detective discovered that her no-contact order wasn't enough to keep Abby Simon away from her teenage lover.
00:11:41
She tweeted him and gave him the information on how to contact her because I had her phone, so he couldn't call her anymore or text her anymore.
00:11:53
she had changed phone numbers but somehow he was able to email her and call her And at least once they managed to meet in person
00:12:07
In fact, he was very upset at being told he couldn't see her again, right? Yes, he was in love.
00:12:12
In fact, he created a new email account, Jose Diaz 27, and the photos and declarations of everlasting love flew between them at the speed of infatuation.
00:12:25
And then, in early August, some three months after the relationship came to light,
00:12:29
Abigail Simon drove from her parents' house to the gym, and there was the police car.
00:12:36
This was her mugshot. She was charged with several counts of criminal sexual conduct
00:12:41
and accosting a minor for immoral purposes. But she soon made bail. The camera is rolling up. One, two, three.
00:12:50
And as the case against her was being prepared back in Grand Rapids, she sat down with us to say that everything we'd been told about this so-called teacher-child love
00:13:00
story was altogether wrong. I read the police report too, and when I read it, I was like,
00:13:06
oh yeah, she is guilty. And none of those things were true. This was no love story,
00:13:13
said Abigail Simon. No, more like a nightmare. Coming up, after school, behind closed doors,
00:13:23
He didn't look like a 15-year-old boy. He didn't act like a 15-year-old boy. He was a monster.
00:13:29
When Dateline continues. This was not the sort of place people are often arrested.
00:13:46
Not among the fine big homes and expansive lawns of Grand Blank, Michigan. This is where Abigail Simon grew up.
00:13:53
Her father, a successful attorney, both parents, graduates of Notre Dame. But this is where she was pulled over, arrested, and charged with criminal sexual conduct
00:14:03
for having a relationship with her then 15-year-old Catholic Central High School pupil,
00:14:07
and where, in November 2014, she sat down with us in the family living room. How does it feel to be you right now?
00:14:15
Well, today it's scary because this is the first time I'm sharing this with anyone other than my therapist and my lawyers, my parents.
00:14:26
I feel empowered to do it. Finally, I've been holding on to it for so long. Holding on to what exactly?
00:14:34
Well, Abby Simon told us that everything you've heard about her relationship with the young man is a lie.
00:14:41
perpetuated by his family and overzealous detectives. It's hard because the way it's being portrayed
00:14:51
and my story that's already been told by them is so not the person I am. Abby's story?
00:14:59
After obtaining a master's degree in academic advising, she moved to Grand Rapids and was offered a position
00:15:05
in that very specialty by the Catholic diocese. But soon, she said, she wasn't so much advising as tutoring athletes at two Catholic high schools.
00:15:16
One of them was that boy, who she said was struggling with a 1.7 grade point average,
00:15:22
and so she helped him as much as she could, often late into the evenings, as she said she did with all her students.
00:15:29
Then, said Abby, it was January 2013, and the incident occurred, the thing that started it all.
00:15:37
It happened, she said, at the end of a group study session. He waited until everyone left, and then he was so angry that I didn't give him any attention,
00:15:46
that I wasn't helping him, and that I didn't care about him. And I was like, that's a slap in the face to me because I've done everything for you.
00:15:55
And he slapped my face and said, no, that's a slap in the face. Wait a minute. He slapped your face?
00:16:01
Slapped my face. No, that's a slap in the face. He's 15 years old. You can get him kicked out of school for that.
00:16:09
But I didn't want to. He was the scariest person alive. The scariest person alive?
00:16:18
Abby Simon was telling us something she had never told the detectives investigating this case,
00:16:23
nor even friends or family at the time she said it was going on. The appropriate response would have been immediate and it would be over.
00:16:31
I mean, he'd have to atone somehow. You were the one in charge. Did you not feel as if you could do that?
00:16:39
Why? He didn't care if he got in trouble. He shut me down. And after? Abby said she became terrified of the big, athletic young man,
00:16:50
already over six feet and nearing 200 pounds, though he was just 15. Why so frightened of a teenage boy?
00:16:57
Well, she said, part of the reason was she had been a victim of domestic violence before.
00:17:03
back in 2007 when she was working at a retail store in Chicago and had a boyfriend whom she claimed was abusive.
00:17:12
I went into his apartment and I said, this isn't going to work. And that's when he lost his mind on me and slammed me to the ground.
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Do you remember what you felt like? I thought I was going to die. He told me to take my last breath, that he was going to kill me.
00:17:29
I was just so sad. I'm like, this is how I'm going to die? I mean, I thought he was going to snap my neck.
00:17:34
That's what it felt like he was trying to do. Abby said she ran for her life then.
00:17:39
Her father, the attorney, persuaded her to go to the police and then eventually to get this restraining order.
00:17:45
Though soon after that, she tried against the judge's wishes to undo it. Afraid the man would find out and hurt her, she said.
00:17:53
The incident changed her life said Abby I packed my stuff up and moved back home at age like 27 or 28 And like the city I loved and the job I loved was forever gone
00:18:10
Still bothers you to think about that. Was he ever charged with anything? No. Anyway, that story, said Abby, could explain why she didn't report her young student at Catholic Central High
00:18:22
when, her claim, the boy slapped her. Nor when, according to her, he stalked her
00:18:28
and showed up at Starbucks and other places near her high-rise condo and made her give him the key to her apartment.
00:18:35
Intimidated her enough, she let him get control of her phone and he used it to send texts to her friends.
00:18:41
He even tried to control who she could see, she said, even when she went out of town.
00:18:46
And on three separate occasions, she claimed, he sexually assaulted her. You know, that first time, if he raped you, the right thing to do is to go to the police.
00:18:58
He'd be charged. Who would believe that? He was 15. Who's going to believe that?
00:19:06
That lingerie photo the boy's mother found. It wasn't a come on, she said. The photo was taken in self-defense.
00:19:15
It was her cry for help. It wasn't posing. I was doing what he wanted me to do. I wasn't assaulted that night because I did that.
00:19:24
Did you ever have consensual sex with him? Never. The proof she offered? One text.
00:19:31
The smoking gun, she claimed. One out of, well, actually thousands of apparently loving and, frankly, explicit texts.
00:19:39
This one, though, is so explicit we can't show you the whole text, but it includes a line that suggests sex.
00:19:45
Reading in part, never put you through that again. baby girl. And that, said Abby, is the reason she asked that detective what her definition of sex
00:19:55
was. Because to Abby, it wasn't sex. It was sexual assault. He didn't look like a 15-year-old boy.
00:20:03
He didn't act like a 15-year-old boy. He was a monster. In our interview, Abby Simon had just
00:20:10
offered a stunning defense to a charge of having sex with a boy. Turned herself from perpetrator,
00:20:17
to victim. The question was, could it hold up in court? Coming up, Abby Simons telling text messages to her friends.
00:20:29
I don't care if he's 20 or 50. I just need my heart skipping. And her former student tells all.
00:20:36
We both knew what we were doing was wrong. As the sunshine faded and western Michigan settled into a late fall,
00:20:58
it appeared the case against Abigail Simon was headed to a courtroom. And so, a veteran prosecutor named Helen Brinkman was assigned the case.
00:21:08
It was to be her last before retirement. She'd made a career out of prosecuting sex crimes.
00:21:13
You go after rapists and abusers on behalf of victims, and you have a situation where there's a person you're prosecuting who claims she is the victim.
00:21:24
Yes. What a way to end a 25-year-long career. To have someone who was preying on a 15-year-old boy for her own gratification,
00:21:38
turn around and make the child responsible. I still have a difficult time wrapping my mind around that.
00:21:47
Still, in an effort to avoid what was sure to be a very public, very painful trial,
00:21:53
The prosecutor's office offered Abby Simon a plea deal. Plead guilty to one count of criminal sexual conduct and accept one year behind bars,
00:22:02
which, with time off for good behavior, would likely mean Abby would be free in a matter of months.
00:22:07
I know we as a team really wanted them to accept that plea offer so that that kid didn't have to go through any of that.
00:22:16
The damage and the harm that comes from this kind of trial to a kid, You just can't understand until you're that kid and you're that kid's family.
00:22:24
But Abigail Simon turned the deal down cold. Some people probably thought, what the heck were you thinking, right?
00:22:33
Most people. So why'd you do it? I was threatened and stalked and assaulted and scared out of my mind.
00:22:42
And then I'd have to pay for his consequences forever. forever because had she taken the plea deal Abby would be placed on the sexual offenders list
00:22:52
and that wouldn't ever go away so now now you're facing this trial it's not going to be easy is it
00:23:02
next year I was a guaranteed I'd be sitting at that table for Thanksgiving if I took the deal
00:23:09
guaranteed I'd be my sister just got engaged I'd be at her wedding no matter what I couldn't do it
00:23:15
Why? Because he owned me. I needed to be able to get my story out, and I couldn't live like that.
00:23:28
And so, in November 2014, Kent County Courthouse in Grand Rapids, Abigail Simon entered the courtroom to fight charges that theoretically could put her in prison for life,
00:23:40
and to do so by claiming that she was the victim of a big, strong, abusive boy. Ladies and gentlemen.
00:23:49
To which, prosecutor Helen Brinkman replied, Who does she think she's kidding? What this may be is practicing...
00:24:00
A play in the theater of the absurd. Abby was certainly not sexually assaulted, said the prosecutor.
00:24:07
This, she told the jury, was an extremely inappropriate love story, as evidenced by the testimony of the young man's mother.
00:24:15
Did you ever confront your son about this? No, I didn't. Why not? Because I knew he would run to her and tell her,
00:24:24
and wouldn't be able to be exposed. He was madly in love with Miss Simon. with his whole heart and his whole soul.
00:24:33
The law is absolutely clear, said the prosecution. Abby's behavior was illegal. The boy was 15.
00:24:41
The age of consent with the teacher is 18. Why, they asked, would Abby Simon take him on day trips to Chicago and Notre Dame,
00:24:49
where this photo was taken of the smiling couple, if not for love? It was a disturbing story, they said.
00:24:57
best told through Abby's text messages. The prosecutor called one by one Abby's friends
00:25:03
and had them read messages Abby sent them, reflecting thousands of other texts that sounded very much like a woman in love with a boy.
00:25:13
All that matters is that our hearts are skipping beats. All I need. I don't care if he's 20 or 50.
00:25:19
I just need my heart skipping, and that's all it is doing with this boy, parenthesis, child.
00:25:25
and it's concerning the only person whose company I enjoy here is a 15-year-old.
00:25:31
I will be upbeat starting now. Do you deny receiving that text from her? No. The text after the picture of his face said,
00:25:40
this is my child or that's my child, something like that. I never have had as much evidence against someone as I had in this case.
00:25:49
Never. She had texted so many people bragging about her inappropriate relationship with this child
00:25:58
and knowing that it was wrong, telling him that it was wrong. We can't keep doing this. I could go to jail.
00:26:05
And then the young man took the stand, spent parts of four days there, detailing an affair that he said lasted two months.
00:26:14
We're not showing his face on camera in court. We both knew what we were doing was wrong.
00:26:18
The prosecutor took him through hundreds more texts, all those words of longing between a school tutor and a boy too young even to drive.
00:26:27
She says, I need you in my bed now. Is that right? Yes. So she says she's telling you she needs you in her bed now and she's going to come and pick you up basically, right?
00:26:39
Yes. Open and shut case, said the prosecutor. The text messages are the truth. They're not created with any other intent than to communicate what they want to communicate at the time.
00:26:51
The text messages are the truth. Now, after that avalanche of evidence against her, Abigail Simon was about to tell the jury the story she told us.
00:27:01
But this time, she'd be seated across from a prosecutor who couldn't wait for her turn with the defendant.
00:27:09
Coming up, tears. I'm trying to be honest up here and it's so disrespectful. And fireworks.
00:27:16
You know, when you're in this situation... The situation of being in love with a 15-year-old.
00:27:23
I wasn't in love with them. Loving to have sex with a 15-year-old, right? Nope. With a great body, right?
00:27:29
Nope. When Dateline continues. Prosecutors had laid out their case in a torrent of text messages,
00:27:46
a damning indictment of a boundary-crossing love affair between then 33-year-old Abigail Simon and her then 15-year-old pupil.
00:27:54
But now Abby's defense set out to turn the story on its head. It's not a love story. It's a control story.
00:28:03
Defense attorney Michael Manley told the jury that Abby was the innocent party here,
00:28:08
A victim held under the thumb of a controlling, dangerous young man who could snap at any moment.
00:28:15
In her mind, one punch could kill. And no woman should ever have to go through what she went through.
00:28:23
The evidence will show that this young lady that I so proud of is finally standing up against the bully How to understand the psychology involved
00:28:36
The defense called an expert on domestic violence. The image we have of the violence used in domestic violence tends to be the black eye and the broken bone.
00:28:45
The reality of the violence in abusive relationships is that it tends to be low-level, pushes, shoves, grabs.
00:28:52
but having a cumulative effect over time that is as frightening as severe violence can be.
00:29:02
First, Abby had to survive an abuse ordeal back in Chicago, said the defense. And then, at the school, the boy relaunched the fear by slapping Abby's face after their study session that night.
00:29:15
And so attorney Matley launched a days-long cross-examination of the young man. He denied he ever slapped Abby, except possibly playfully during sex.
00:29:26
But then there followed one accusation after another. Is this whole thing that you did to Miss Simon so you could be popular to say I've got the hot tutor?
00:29:37
That's not what you did? No. The defense told the jury the young man had changed his story several times.
00:29:43
And, in fact, he had. In his first interview with police, he said he forced Abby to have sex with him.
00:29:50
And twice said he put a gun to her head. You told Detective Lowry that she pointed a gun to her head and told her that I would kill her if she didn't love me back?
00:30:01
Yes. Detective Lowry at the time didn't believe him for a minute. And later, sure enough, the young man recanted.
00:30:07
said that putting a gun to her head comment was his effort to keep Abby from getting into trouble.
00:30:15
But the defense attorney flat out accused the young man of sexual assault. You forced yourself on Miss Simon in the car on the 24th of April, did you not?
00:30:26
No, I did not. You didn't grab her by the hair and put her head into your lap? No.
00:30:32
And finally, the defense confronted him with what it said was proof of sexual assault, what it called the smoking gun text.
00:30:41
The one you'll recall, which clearly suggested sex had taken place, in the text the boy apologizes, promises to never put you through that again, baby girl.
00:30:50
First of all, did you send that text message? Yes. Can you explain to the jury what that meant?
00:30:57
Never doing anything again in the car. And it's your testimony that that text message is only because it was uncomfortable in the car?
00:31:10
Yes. It was consensual between you two? Yes. When he was finally allowed to leave the stand,
00:31:19
it appeared that Abby's defense and her freedom depended on the story she, and she alone, was about to tell.
00:31:27
We would call Abigail Simon to the stand. The question, despite all those text messages professing her deep and abiding love,
00:31:37
would the jury, could the jury, believe Abigail Simon's claim that she was a victim?
00:31:44
Simon, would you raise your right hand? You've been in therapy for 18 months now, correct?
00:31:50
Yes. Are you ready to tell your story? Yes. At one point, I remember thinking, like, this is my life right now.
00:31:58
I'm doing this for a 15-year-old? How is this even possible? I'm his. He owned me.
00:32:05
He owned me up until today when I got here to finally tell what happened. And he never thought I would
00:32:12
go up here and tell the truth. He thought I would cover for him. Of course, by taking the stand in her own
00:32:18
defense to tell her story, Abby Simon knew she was opening herself up to what would no doubt be an intense
00:32:24
cross-examination by prosecutor Helen Brinkman. A question we put to Abby before the trial.
00:32:30
The prosecutor is going to challenge you every which way to Sunday and accuse you of all kinds of things.
00:32:37
Are you ready for that? The best part is I can just tell the truth. I can just be honest.
00:32:41
So I don't have to remember what was I supposed to say. I can just tell the story.
00:32:45
You never reported, right? But the prosecutor's opinion of Ms. Simon was clear from the start.
00:32:51
You know, when you're in this situation... The situation of being in love with a 15 I wasn in love have sex with a 15 year old right Nope With a great body right
00:33:03
Nope. Do you really think that A, if I like someone... Stop, stop, you don't get to ask the questions.
00:33:07
When I'm trying to tell something and you roll your eyes or laugh about it, I'm trying to be honest up here and it's so disrespectful.
00:33:15
The more she talked, the more she attacked me during cross-examination... She was insulted that you didn't believe her.
00:33:22
Yes, and I was insulted that she thought someone would. Who told you you don't have to have proof?
00:33:28
And for portions of two days, it went just like that. I never used the word rapist.
00:33:35
I said he forced me against my will. I have the binder. He keeps stating things that he has no evidence for as though it's fact.
00:33:42
You've got the evidence. No, don't just say that. Just a minute. This thing is getting totally out of control and beginning to lose it a little bit.
00:33:48
You have no problem barking back at me, do you? Nope. Nope. pretty strong person, aren't you?
00:33:53
Yes, after 18 months of therapy. This is the first time my dad said it at lunch day.
00:33:57
He's never seen you stand up to myself. Objection, objection, objection. I've waited for this day.
00:34:05
Finally, the prosecutor asked, if Abby's text messages were the cry for help, she claimed,
00:34:12
why didn't she tell her father, the attorney who was in court with her every day
00:34:16
and helped her escape the abuse she said she suffered years earlier in Chicago? All you had to do was ask your dad. Call your dad on the phone. I'm being beaten. I'm being raped. He's a lawyer.
00:34:26
You know it's not that easy. You know it's not that easy. It is that easy. You did it before.
00:34:32
Women do this all the time. Just a minute. Just a minute. Who told you that? Just a minute.
00:34:37
I've lived it. I've lived it. And it is so scary. And you can't go to the police right away. And you know that.
00:34:45
Finally, Abigail Simon left the stand. It was the jury's turn. What did you think as the jury went out at the end of that trial?
00:34:53
I worried because we don't hold women accountable like we do men. We don't. That's our society.
00:35:00
I think people don't want to believe that women can be cunning and devious and child molesters.
00:35:09
But they are. So, Abby Simon, for the moment, is free as a bird. Waited to find out if she'd stay that way.
00:35:20
Coming up, The Verdict. We the jury on count one on the charge of criminal sexual conduct.
00:35:40
November 2014, just hours before the Thanksgiving holiday was to begin. Not a word from the jury for 12 hours.
00:35:50
Would they believe, Abby? Or the prosecution? But then they were back. We're ready for the jury.
00:35:57
Abby Simon seemed to be teetering on the brink. An emotional wreck. Madam Foreperson, if you would kindly stand.
00:36:05
And by reading from the form where it starts, we the jury... We the jury on count one,
00:36:11
on the charge of criminal sexual conduct, first degree. We the jury find the defendant, Abigail Simon, guilty.
00:36:20
Abby's mother and sister cried out in anger and anguish. The jury just didn't believe her.
00:36:29
In the charge of accosting a child for immoral purposes, we, the jury, find the defendant, Abigail Simon, guilty.
00:36:37
On and on it went. Guilty. Four guilty verdicts, acquitted on a fifth. Minutes later, Abigail Simon went directly to jail.
00:36:48
You are so strong, Abby. Outside the courtroom, defense attorney Michael Manley spoke.
00:36:54
Were you surprised by what happened in there? Shocked. Shocked and devastated. Very disappointed in the jury's verdict.
00:37:02
She's at peace. She already won. She told her story. She faced her accuser. And nobody's going to hurt her again.
00:37:10
But after listening to the defense attempt to pay to Abby as the victim, Grand Rapids Police Detective Dave Gillum finally felt free to speak his mind.
00:37:19
The level of victim bashing and victim blaming and throwing this family not only the victim but the family under the bus over and over and over is unprecedented in my 18 years I never seen anything to that degree
00:37:32
Something got onto your skin big time here. Yes, this is a 15-year-old kid. You're a 35-year-old woman, 36-year-old woman that you took advantage of,
00:37:43
and you're blaming, not just blaming him, but accusing him of a crime that could put him in prison for the rest of his life.
00:37:50
extraordinarily bothered me. Because, he said, none of the evidence, not one thing,
00:37:58
suggested that the boy was in any way aggressive or abusive toward the woman he loved.
00:38:04
All rise. And seven weeks later, after spending Thanksgiving and Christmas behind bars,
00:38:11
out for sentencing came Abigail Simon, visibly diminished. When it was her chance to speak, she said, perhaps no surprise,
00:38:20
She regretted her decision to turn down the plea deal, which would likely have meant mere months in jail in total.
00:38:28
Kicking herself, really, for, the way she put it, selfishly choosing to fight for herself rather than do what was best for her family.
00:38:37
I'm so much more than remorseful. I don't know how to live with myself or put in my story about them.
00:38:44
I'm so sorry for all of this. I cry all day and all night, every day. I'm so tired and sick, and I just want to go home.
00:38:56
And I want to climb in my mom's bed and never leave her son. I'm lost and I'm broken, and I don't know how to go on without my family.
00:39:06
I'm asking you to send me home as soon as possible. Pathos doesn't begin to describe the scene in here.
00:39:14
When it was time for the sentencing, she seemed to swoon on the verge of passing out.
00:39:20
Deputies stepped in to steady her. You okay? But Judge Paul Sullivan made it clear he agreed with the jury's verdict.
00:39:29
The evidence in this case was overwhelming. And he handed down a sentence that was in the middle range of possibilities.
00:39:38
It's going to be the sentence this court that the defendant be turned over to the Michigan Department of Corrections
00:39:42
to serve a parade of incarceration of not less than eight, no more than 25 years.
00:39:47
Abigail Simon absorbed the news of her sentence blankly, as if the words blew by her like a fastball.
00:39:54
Eight to 25 years. A listed sex offender for life. Hopefully this will be a lesson to any other teacher who wants to pray on another child.
00:40:04
It doesn't turn out to be the fantasy they think it is. Her earliest possible release date is November of 2022.
00:40:13
Her appeals have all been rejected. All rise. Her family, who had invited us into their home to hear Abby's side of the story,
00:40:27
now declined to speak to us, declined our request for a comment of any kind, and directed attorney Michael Manley to do likewise.
00:40:36
And the prosecutor, who just watched the end of her last case, is mostly sorry she had to bring it to court at all.
00:40:45
I don't think you put a victim through what she put this victim through. Not confessing, not being repentant.
00:40:53
I hope she has some time to consider what she did to that family beyond what she did to that child.
00:40:58
Since then, the young man's lawyers filed a lawsuit against Simon, claiming battery and emotional distress.
00:41:05
The lawsuit also accused the local Catholic diocese, two administrators, and a coach of not protecting the young man from the tutor.
00:41:13
Michigan's Court of Appeals tossed out the lawsuit. But the state Supreme Court is now considering reviewing the case.
00:41:21
And as for that young man, he's an adult now, still trying to figure out his next step in life.
00:41:27
His lawyer told us he has dropped out of college and is still struggling. He's going to have to live with the fact that the person that he loved is going to be in prison for eight years.
00:41:38
Love is blind sometimes. and this kind of love was not just a crime it was a tragedy
00:41:46
that's all for now I'm Lester Holt thanks for joining us