A substitute teacher in Columbus, Ohio, was sentenced Wednesday to about three months in prison for showing a disturbing, sexually explicit movie to her high school students.
Sheila Kearns, 58, claimed she did not know the movie "The ABCs of Death" was filled with graphic violence and sex scenes when she showed it to her Spanish class students at East High School in April 2013, The Columbus Dispatch reported.
Kearns, who does not speak Spanish, said she did not watch the movie before showing it to her students. She played the video for five separate classes but said her back was turned to the screen the entire time.
"I do love children," Kearns said in Franklin County court on Wednesday. "I am sorry. I should have watched the movie."
Judge Charles A. Schneider, however, did not buy her story, calling it "unconscionable" as he sentenced her to 90 days in jail.
"There's no way you'll persuade me that's what happened," Schneider said according to The Columbus Dispatch.
The substitute's sentence comes after her January conviction on four counts of disseminating matter harmful to juveniles. A jury dropped the first count because they determined the defendant might not have actually known the film was inappropriate when she showed it the first time.
After her conviction, Columbus City Schools told the newspaper Kearns was placed with the Spanish class because foreign-language teachers are hard to find and the school "was unable to find anyone who could teach the language at that time."
The district has since fired Kearns.
"This is what happens when you put a teacher in a class that she cannot teach," Schneider said as he reprimanded the school district.
It's not clear why she showed the movie, which is unrated and has 26 chapters for each letter of the alphabet. Each chapter shows a horrifying death.
Kearns, whose teaching license was revoked this year, has until April to report to jail and will spend three years on probation upon her release.
