Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Former teacher gets two to five years in prison

Ausborne had sexual relations with two girls

Cornelius "Corky" Ausborne is led from court Monday. The former teacher and UNLV athlete was sentenced to two to five years in prison for having sexual relations with two teenage girls. Photo by Clint Karlsen.

Cornelius "Corky" Ausborne, the former teacher and UNLV athlete who had sexual relations with two teenage girls, was sentenced Monday to two to five years in prison.

The sentence followed a hearing in which Ausborne's defense attorney, Stephen Stein, claimed Ausborne's victims weren't innocents in the case.

While the crimes were inexcusable, he noted that at least one of the victims had sought Ausborne out for sex.

Stein also said Caucasians in the criminal justice system might not be able to fully understand the context in which Ausborne's crimes were committed.

"We are middle, upper class, Christian, white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant," said Stein, who then noted to the judge that he is Jewish.

In somewhat cryptic comments that were never fully explained in court, Stein said that Ausborne's family had tried to relay to him that Ausborne had been exposed to a different "moral code."

"There is a different moral code ... in the Ausborne background than yours and mine," Stein said.

Asked to clarify his comments outside of court, Stein said he was trying to convey what Ausborne's family had relayed to him -- that "we start having sex at a lot younger age," and that "black women are much more sexual than good old Judeo-Christian George Bush types."

Ausborne is black. The victims in the case are Hispanic.

Ausborne played for the UNLV basketball team in the 1996-97 and 1997-98 seasons. He quit the team in February 1998, citing a lack of playing time and a desire to focus on his academic studies.

Ausborne was teaching at Sawyer Middle School in the southwest Las Vegas Valley when he was arrested in the summer of 2004 on charges of statutory sexual seduction, two counts of sexual assault -- one of a victim under 14 -- and one count of sexual misconduct with a student.

Ausborne had worked for the Clark County School District for two years as a long-term substitute and was subjected to criminal background checks.

Authorities alleged that Ausborne, who was then 29 years old, had sex with a 13-year-old girl at her home in March or April 2004. The teacher and another girl, 14, met May 3 of that year in a classroom at the school.

Police alleged that Ausborne acknowledged masturbating in front of the 14-year-old girl and later rubbing his penis against her vagina in the classroom. Clark County prosecutor Lisa Luzaich Rego said Ausborne's DNA was later found in the girl's panties and on her skirt.

In an agreement reached in District Court, Ausborne pleaded guilty to lewdness with a minor under the age of 14 and sexual contact between a teacher and student. In court Monday in front of Judge Sally Loehrer, Ausborne apologized for his conduct.

"Not only were my actions legally wrong, they were ethically wrong," Ausborne told Loehrer.

"I know that my actions were totally, totally irresponsible," he said, at times weeping.

But despite the apology and a plea for leniency from Ausborne, Loehrer sent Ausborne to prison, saying teachers who have sex with their students cannot be tolerated.

"That is over the line," Loehrer said. "Over the line, cannot be condoned. It cannot be explained away.

"If there's one thing they teach teachers it's, 'Thou shalt not have sexual relations with a student,' " the judge said. "I don't know where our moral compass has gone."

Stein said his client's conduct was an aberration from a man with no criminal history. He said one of the girls had bragged to others about her sexual exploits with Ausborne, and another then sought Ausborne out for sex as well.

"They did not want to see him prosecuted," Luzaich Rego said.

But Luzaich Rego said a memo in Ausborne's school case file indicates someone had reported suspicions to school officials in 2002 that Ausborne might be acting inappropriately with a student. Luzaich Rego also said there were indications Ausborne had masturbated to a pornographic video in his classroom.

Loehrer sentenced Ausborne to 24 to 60 months in prison, followed by five years probation. If he violates probation, he faces a sentence of 10 years to life in prison.

Ausborne was one of nearly two dozen Clark County teachers arrested on charges of having sex with a student over a two-year time span. Many of those teachers have received probation, but some have also been sent to prison.