A former Colorado educator, once considered a contender for the 2025 state Teacher of the Year, has been sentenced to 14 years in prison following allegations of a sexual relationship with a student, as well as continued contact with the student after legal charges were filed against her.

Tera Johnson-Swartz, 45, who previously taught at STEM School Highlands Ranch and is also a writer, admitted guilt to charges of sexual exploitation of a child and cybercrime, the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office reported on March 19. The cybercrime charge was linked to her ongoing communication with the student involved.

The case came to light when the parents of a 16-year-old student discovered text messages containing sexual content in January 2025, as detailed by The Denver Post.

Johnson-Swartz, who had been acknowledged as one of the seven finalists for Colorado’s Teacher of the Year just five months prior to the investigation, faced charges in two distinct cases. The first case arose from a grand jury inquiry into the alleged relationship in early 2025, while the second related to her continued interactions with the student.

Authorities announced the 14-year sentence for Johnson-Swartz, underscoring the serious nature of her actions while employed at STEM School Highlands Ranch. (Douglas County Sheriff’s Office)

Documents show the relationship started with texting but quickly escalated, with Johnson-Swartz giving the student cigarettes, letting him use her marijuana vape pen, and eventually engaging in a physical relationship, the local outlet reported.

She was reportedly suspended from the school once the allegations surfaced and was later fired and banned from campus.

Less than a month later, the involved student was caught on camera leaving campus and getting into a car that matched Johnson-Swartz’s vehicle, according to CBS. The teen reportedly admitted to investigators that his former teacher had picked him up and driven him to a nearby neighborhood.

The incident sparked an investigation, and in February 2025, detectives with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office Special Victims Unit arrested Johnson-Swartz on charges of kidnapping and contributing to the delinquency of a minor in connection with an inappropriate relationship with a student.

STEM School Highlands Ranch is a charter school in Colorado. (Google Maps)

Johnson-Swartz secured a $100,000 bond with the assistance of a professional bondsman and was released the following day, the outlet said. 

However, over the Fourth of July weekend that year, authorities were alerted by the student’s parents, who reported that the two were still in contact, according to CBS.

The authorities arrested Johnson-Swartz in 2025 following allegations that Johnson-Swartz engaged in a sexual relationship with a student. (iStock)

The two reportedly encountered one another for two consecutive nights and Johnson-Swartz began calling and texting in the days that followed.

Johnson-Swartz was arrested again. In addition to her prison sentence, she was reportedly ordered to complete six years of sex offender probation after her release, which includes registering as a convicted sex offender.

In a shocking instance of mistaken identity, a man was unjustly detained at a psychiatric facility in Hawaii for two years. This case involved Joshua Spriestersbach, 55, who was wrongfully apprehended by police in 2017 while living on the streets, mistaken for another individual, Thomas Castleberry.

The real Thomas Castleberry had been serving time in an Alaskan prison since 2016, as noted in court documents referenced in the legal action taken by Spriestersbach. Despite this clear discrepancy, authorities failed to rectify their error.

According to a lawsuit filed by Spriestersbach in 2021, the police had previously misidentified him in two separate encounters but did not amend the mistake. This repeated oversight ultimately led to his wrongful arrest and prolonged detention in 2017.

During two previous interactions, police misidentified Spriestersbach and then did not correct the record, according to a lawsuit Spriestersbach filed in 2021.

Those errors and others led to his eventual 2017 arrest and a yearslong detention.

He is now set to receive a $975,000 payout from the City and County of Honolulu.

Spriestersbach also may receive a $200,000 settlement from the state to resolve legal claims against the Hawaii public defender’s office.

The settlement follows years of legal action in which Spriestersbach alleged false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, abuse of process and intentional infliction of emotional distress stemming from the ordeal. 

 Joshua Spriesterbach, 55, was mistaken by Thomas Castleberry and wrongfully arrested by Honolulu Police when he was waiting outside a shelter to get food 

At the time of Spriestersbach’s arrest, he was mistaken for Thomas Castleberry who was already incarcerated in Spring Creek Correctional Facility in Alaska since 2016

In 2011, Spriestersbach was homeless and sleeping at Kawananakoa Middle School in Punchbowl when an officer woke him up and asked for his name. 

Spriestersbach would not give a first name, his lawsuit says, and gave only his grandfather’s last name: Castleberry.

The officer found a 2009 warrant for Thomas Castleberry and arrested Spriestersbach for the outstanding warrant. He told the officer he was not Thomas Castleberry, the complaint says, but the officer arrested him anyway. 

Spriestersbach didn’t show up to his court date, and the court later dropped the bench warrant for him. But the mistaken identity followed him.

In 2015, an HPD officer approached Spriestersbach after hours in ‘A’ala Park, where he had been sleeping. 

He initially refused to give his name to that officer but eventually did so, the complaint says. 

Thomas Castleberry was listed as an alias, and there was a warrant out for his arrest, the complaint says, but because the officers took Spriestersbach’s fingerprints this time, they confirmed he was not Castleberry.

Still, the complaint says, they did not update the police department’s records.

Spriestersbach will receive a $1.1 million payout. He now lives with his sister in Vermont and is afraid to leave her 10-acre property, thinking he is going to get arrested again

The lawsuit alleges authorities had access to fingerprints and photographs that could have definitively distinguished the two men but failed to properly compare or act on that information. 

On the day of 2017 arrest, Spriestersbach was waiting for food outside Safe Haven in Chinatown. 

He fell asleep on the sidewalk while waiting in line, his complaint says, and an HPD officer woke him up and arrested him for Casteberry’s outstanding warrant.

According to court filings, Spriestersbach believed at the time he was being arrested for violating Honolulu’s restrictions on sitting or lying on public sidewalks, not for an outstanding warrant tied to another man.

Spriestersbach spent four months at O’ahu Community Correctional Center and more than two years at the Hawaii State Hospital before being released on January 17, 2020.

During his confinement at the hospital, Spriestersbach was forced to take psychiatric medication, according to filings from the Hawaii Innocence Project. 

Police officers, public defenders and health workers had had the chance to correct the mistake that led to Spriesterbach’s detention and custody, according to his complaint. But nobody did so.

‘Prior to January 2020, not a single person acted on the available information to determine that Joshua was telling the truth – that he was not Thomas R. Castleberry,’ the complaint says. 

Spriesterbach was committed to a Hawaii State Hospital, where he was heavily medicated, for two years and eight months until a psychiatrist listened to him 

The Hawaii Innocence Project is a non-profit ‘with a mission to free prisoners who are factually innocent but who have been wrongfully convicted’

The complaint further alleges that even after Spriestersbach provided identification, public defenders and other officials failed to believe his claims that he was not Castleberry. 

‘Instead, they determined that Joshua was delusional and incompetent just because he refused to admit that he was Thomas R. Castleberry and refused to acknowledge Thomas R. Castleberry’s crimes.’

The complaint says city practices failing to properly identify homeless and mentally ill people – as well as failing to correct mistaken records that result in their arrests – were ‘the moving force’ behind Spriesterbach’s arrest and detention.

Attorneys also warned that without correcting official records, Spriestersbach remained at risk of being wrongly arrested again under the same mistaken identity. 

According to his lawyers, the mistake was ultimately uncovered only after a psychiatrist at the hospital prompted a closer review, leading to fingerprint verification that confirmed he was not the man named in the warrant. 

The Hawaii Innocence Project said in filings that police, public defenders, the state attorney general’s office and hospital staff ‘share in the blame for this gross miscarriage of justice.’ 

After his release, Spriestersbach was eventually reunited with family members who had spent years searching for him, though his sister later said he remains fearful that the same mistake could happen again.

Spriestersbach’s lawyers did not respond to requests for comment. HPD and the mayor’s office also did not respond to a request for comment.

His legal team had previously sought court intervention to formally correct his records, arguing that the failure to do so left the underlying error unresolved. 

A majority of Honolulu council members approved the settlement on Wednesday afternoon, though council member Val Okimoto voted to approve it with reservations.

A troubling video has surfaced depicting a man climbing into a police vehicle stationed at a Southern California police department, where he was later discovered deceased.

The individual, identified by authorities as 37-year-old Eric Valencia, was found by a maintenance worker in the back of a decommissioned patrol car parked outside the Azusa Police Department headquarters in downtown Azusa.

Security footage released by the Azusa police captures the moment Valencia entered the marked, unlocked squad car positioned directly in front of the department’s main office around midday last Monday.

Following this incident, Valencia vanished from sight until three days later. It was then that a worker, contracted to clean the vehicle, stumbled upon his lifeless body inside the car, which had remained stationary since his entry.

The circumstances surrounding his death are still under investigation, leaving the cause unknown.

Chief of Police Rocky Wenrick said the department is investigating what happened to Valencia, why the car was left unlocked, and how come nobody noticed him inside the car — even though it was parked in front of the police station all week long.  

“We will continue to follow the facts wherever it takes us,” Wenrick said at a press conference given at the police station Monday to discuss the case.

Asuza police arrested Valencia on March 20 on suspicion of driving under the influence and child endangerment, and released him from custody three days later, on last Monday, just moments before he entered the squad car, said Wenrick.

Valencia had no signs of trauma to his body at the time of his arrest and had been regularly checked on by police while in custody, according to Wenrick. Police provided Valencia with extra food upon his release, said Wenrick.  

Valencia’s family reported him missing just hours before his body was discovered, said Wenrick.

Video released by Azusa police Monday shows Valencia talking and moving normally as exited the police station and walked onto the sidewalk in front of the station. He passes a pair of squad cars before doubling back and letting himself into one in the video.

Wenrick said the vehicle was awaiting maintenance, which is a common practice as patrol units are regularly cycled in and out of service and new vehicles await equipment installation.

“It should have been secured,” said Wenrick.

The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner will determine Valencia’s cause of death, which remained unknown Monday.

Wenrick said Valencia had a working cell phone with him when he entered the squad car. He said a preliminary test showed Valencia’s blood alcohol level was at twice the legal limit at the time of his arrest.

The Azusa Police Department retained an outside investigative firm to conduct an independent investigation into the entire incident, Wenrick said, including determining why the vehicle was not locked.

Wenrick did not answer questions on the incident, citing an ongoing investigation. He would not say if any officers would be disciplined over the matter.

Members of Valencia’s family gathered in front of the police station on Monday with a shrine to their dead relative placed near the parking spot where his body was discovered.

Carlos Velasquez, a cousin of Valencia’s, said the dead man was a father of two who lived not far from the police station. He was in good spirits and strong health before he died, said Velasquez.

Valencia’s family is shocked and heartbroken by his passing, said Velasquez, and they want police to tell them how he ended up dead in a squad car parked right in front of the police station.

“We want answers,” said Velasquez. “We didn’t hear from him at all.”