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• Mar 28, 2008 9:25 pm US/Eastern
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  Former Teacher Found Guilty Of Sex Assault

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Former Teacher Found Guilty Of Sex Assault

HOWARD COUNTY, Md. (WJZ) ― A former Howard County teacher appeared before a judge Friday.  He was accused of inappropriate and disturbing behavior with a student.

Mike Hellgren reports Alan Meade Beier decided he wanted the judge and not the jury to decide his innocence or guilt.  The judge decided to find him guilty of several sex crimes.

Beier taught at River Hill High School in Clarksville for 10 years. Students even named him "Teacher of the Year."  Now he faces 35 years in prison. 

Eyewitness News was there when Beier left court with his lawyers, minutes after a judge found him guilty of second-degree sex offense and sexual assault of a minor. 
    
Beier took dozens of naked pictures of a student at school.

It all happened in January 2007.  Beier asked the 16-year-old to come to school where he set up camera equipment, snapping naked photos of the teen.

Charging documents reveal Beier asked the victim to cover his genitals with ping pong paddle. 

The boy's father spoke to Eyewitness News about the decision. 

"We are extremely happy about the verdict.  I think the judge heard the evidence and could make no other conclusion other than what was made," said the victim's father. 

Police recovered the pictures on computers and in a camera in Beier's home.  His lawyers argued he simply took pictures and didn't break the law.

"We found those photographs of that boy as he described them to our detectives," said Sherry Llewellyn with the Howard County Police.

Beier is now on home confinement and will be sentenced in June.

Beier's legal troubles don't end with this case.  Two more students have accused him of sexually inappropriate conduct, including a 17-year-old  female student. That student says Beier fondled her during class. 

"You're just in utter shock because a person in a position of authority exploiting a young man or a young person of any kind is sad.  It's very disturbing and as a parent, it's a shock," said the victim's father.  "God forbid anyone else should have to go through this and other parents who are involved in this, I feel for them.  That's a very difficult thing, very hard position to be in." 

Beier is one of three teachers in Howard County arrested during the last school year and accused of sex crimes against students. 

A Glenelg High history teacher was convicted earlier this year and special education teacher Kirsten Ann Kinley pleaded guilty last year to inappropriate conduct with a teenager, who is now suing her and the school board for $3 million.

(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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