Former teacher Cara Dickey faces prison term for raping pupil twice
She pleads guilty to raping 14-year-old boy
Cara L. Dickey pleaded guilty Wednesday to raping one of her South Buffalo Charter School pupils twice last summer.
The 30-year-old mother of three pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree (statutory) rape.
State Supreme Court Justice John L. Michalski said the Clarence resident faces two to five years in prison. Sentencing is scheduled April 22.
In addition, she will be designated a sex offender by the state and be forced to surrender her state teaching certificate.
During the plea proceeding, Dickey’s eyes filled with tears.
Michalski told Dickey her pleas to two counts of second-degree rape could have carried a prison term of up to 14 years. He said he will impose up to eight years of post-prison supervision.
Though the sex was not forced, the boy was considered by law to be too young to have a consensual sexual encounter, which is why she was charged with second-degree rape.
With the mother of the 14-year-old victim in the downtown Buffalo courtroom, Dickey’s voice cracked as the judge told her the prison term she faces.
“Yes, sir,” she responded to the judge’s questions.
At the request of prosecutor Colleen Curtin Gable, the judge also issued a temporary order of protection barring Dickey from trying to contact the victim.
Robert D. Steinhaus, attorney for the victim’s father, who has custody of the boy, said he has already filed a notice of claim for a pending civil suit against both South Buffalo Charter School and Dickey over what he called an “extremely inappropriate” relationship. The father was not present for the plea proceeding.
Dickey admitted she had sex with the boy last June and again between July 1 and Aug. 15.
Fired last June, Dickey was found by state police sleeping in her vehicle in Springville last June 17 — after she and the boy, an eighth-grader, had been missing for more than 21 hours. The boy was found in a Hamburg mall.
Dickey, who last June was charged with unlawful imprisonment and other counts, supplied the boy with rum, Tylenol and Nyquil as part of a suicide pact, according to police.
Daniel J. Chiacchia, Dickey’s lawyer, declined to comment following the plea proceeding.
Dickey’s husband and the father of her three children was not in court for the plea.
Steinhaus said the victim’s family is doing “as well as can be expected under these horrible circumstances.”
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