Longtime Clovis East High School teacher accused of touching student sentenced to probation
Kenneth Kong Lee, a well-liked teacher at Clovis East High School, was sentenced Wednesday to one year of probation for giving a student an unwanted side hug.
Lee’s defense attorneys, Margarita Martinez-Baly and Kathy Bird, called the sentence a fair outcome for the 54-year-old Hmong language teacher who has been on unpaid leave since 2018 when a student accused him of touching her inappropriately while she was in his class.
Although Lee was originally charged with one felony count of lewd act upon a child, age 14 or 15, and a misdemeanor count of annoying, molesting any child under 18 years old, those charges were dropped by the prosecution on the eve of his jury trial.
Instead, Lee’s lawyers and prosecutor Kristin Maxwell struck a deal where Lee would plead no contest to a simple battery charge for the side hug.
“We are very pleased with the sentence,” Bird said.
Bird said Lee has been teaching for 20 years and has not received a single complaint from a student. Hundreds of letters of support were written on his behalf and more than two dozen of his supporters were in the courtroom Wednesday.
Prior to issuing Lee’s sentence, Judge Arlan Harrell heard from the mother of the student who read a letter from her daughter.
“No words can describe how I feel emotionally and physically,” the mother said, reading from her daughter’s letter. “I am still recovering from this traumatic experience. I still have anxiety, depression and low self-esteem. It is something I am still struggling with today. This violating experience has caused me to feel unsafe in public.”
The former high school student also described in the letter the online bullying she endured from students who called her a liar. One day she walked into Lee’s classroom and found a note that said “We want Mr. Lee back.”
The judge made a point of expressing his disappointment over how the former student was treated by her fellow classmates.
“You should not be punished for speaking up,” Harrell said.
Along with probation, Harrell ordered Lee to pay restitution in an amount to be determined later, and he was ordered to stay away from the alleged victim for three years.
Still unresolved is a lawsuit filed in April, 2021 against Lee and Clovis Unified. The lawsuit that claims the district was negligent in hiring Lee is seeking unspecified damages.
