POCATELLO — A Pocatello-Chubbuck School District 25 teacher faces up to life in prison after being charged with multiple sex crimes against a first-grade boy.

Tiffany Marie Petersen, 46, of Pocatello, has been charged with one count of lewd conduct against a child and one count of rape of a child under the age of 16, both felonies.

Petersen, a teacher at Syringa Elementary School in Pocatello, was indicted for the alleged sex crimes by a Bannock County grand jury on Wednesday and she was arrested by Pocatello police later that day.

Petersen allegedly engaged in sexual intercourse and other sexual acts with the first-grade student starting in August 2008 while she was his teacher at Washington Elementary School in Pocatello, according to the indictment. The student was 7 or 8 years old at the time of the incidents, which occurred at Washington Elementary, the indictment stated.

Each of the felony charges Petersen is facing carries a maximum penalty of life in prison if she is convicted.

Aside from information contained in the indictment, not much is known about the sex crimes Petersen is accused of committing because authorities have not released any additional details about the crimes and all other court documents in the case have been sealed.

However, some details about the allegations against Petersen are included in a civil lawsuit filed against her and School District 25 by the parents of the allegedly abused former student.

The lawsuit accuses the School District of trying to cover up the alleged abuse of the student committed by Petersen as well as her unnamed boyfriend, who was apparently allowed to be in her classroom while she was teaching at Washington Elementary School.

Soon after news of the lawsuit broke on Friday, School District 25 issued a press release saying it tries to create an environment at its schools where students feel comfortable reporting abuse.

“Our learners often seek out our counselors or school psychologists when confronting challenging or frightening situations,” said Kent Hobbs, District 25’s director of student services, in a press release issued Friday evening. “Our school district has worked very hard to create an environment in which our learners feel safe and secure, including providing ongoing sexual harassment training for our administrators, staff and students.”

The lawsuit, filed by the alleged victim’s parents in August 2018 in Bannock County court, states that the victim was in Petersen’s first-grade class at Washington Elementary School starting in August 2008 when the sexual abuse began.

The lawsuit states: “While a student in Ms. Petersen’s class, (the male victim) was subjected to physical, verbal and sexual abuse by Ms. Petersen, as well as her boyfriend, who was allowed to be present in her classroom.”

The lawsuit does not identify Petersen’s boyfriend by name. The parents of the male victim began to suspect something was occurring in Petersen’s classroom when their child became quiet and withdrawn during the first half of the 2008 semester, the lawsuit states.

The boy’s parents then requested a meeting with Steve Morton, who was the principal of Washington Elementary School, according to the civil suit. The boy’s parents also met with Patti Mortenson, a School District 25 administrator.

“Despite (the parents’) serious concerns, the District 25 administration took no action during the 2008 first semester, however, Ms. Petersen was transferred out of Washington Elementary to another school over Christmas break in 2008,” the lawsuit states.

As a result of the alleged abuse that the male victim experienced, the lawsuit states he has suffered from “behavioral issues, such as impulsiveness, touching other children and becoming easily frustrated and angry.” Moreover, he has suffered from “physical and mental issues, including trouble eating and severe anxiety that has required emergency room visits,” the lawsuit states.

The male victim has been on several medications for his behavioral problems and anxiety and has consistently been in counseling since 2008, according to the lawsuit filed by his parents.

The lawsuit also states that Petersen’s boyfriend sexually abused the male victim at Washington Elementary School, though no criminal charges have yet been filed against the boyfriend.

The lawsuit states that Petersen had “a duty to protect (the male victim) from reasonably foreseeable harm,” and that by “allowing her boyfriend to be present in her classroom and allowing him to physically and sexually abuse (the male victim) … Petersen egregiously breached her duty to protect (the male victim) from harm.”

The lawsuit states in regard to Petersen’s boyfriend that School District 25 “knew or should have known that allowing an unknown person, with an unknown background and proclivities into an elementary school classroom that it would pose a threat to its students.”

The lawsuit also claims that School District 25 was negligent in that it permitted or encouraged the victim’s alleged abuse in several ways.

The lawsuit accuses the School District of tolerating the abuse of children, concealing and covering up the abuse of children, allowing an unknown adult to have unsupervised contact with children, failing to adopt policies and procedures to identify potential and actual sex offenders and failing to properly investigate claims of abuse.

The alleged victim’s parents are being represented in their lawsuit by Pocatello attorney Reed Larsen and are seeking at least $10,000 in damages from Petersen and the School District. The case is expected to go to trial some time in the next 12 to 18 months, according to court documents.

Larsen told the Journal on Friday that the male victim was recently finally able to reveal that he was sexually abused, which is why it took a decade for his parents to file the lawsuit against Petersen and School District 25.

“This child had been dealing with things privately and it took him quite a while to deal with them publicly,” Larsen said. “This child has gone through a ton of problems. And as you can tell from the lawsuit, the district never took it serious. The parents did not know the nature and extent of his abuse until recently.”

Larsen would not comment on other specifics about the abuse but did say, “This is an awful thing for a child to have to go through, especially from a person they are supposed to trust.”

In response to the lawsuit, defense attorneys representing the School District, Brian K. Julian and Amy G. White, both of Boise, and the defense attorney representing Petersen, Daniel J. Skinner, also of Boise, denied all of the allegations made by the parents of the alleged victim.

School District 25 announced via a Friday morning news release that it placed a teacher on administrative leave effective Thursday. The School District did not name the teacher in its news release, but Bannock County authorities subsequently confirmed that the teacher is Petersen.

Separate from the civil lawsuit against Petersen and School District 25, it appears that law enforcement was investigating Petersen for the past several months, which apparently culminated with her being indicted on Wednesday.

Petersen is currently listed as a teacher at Syringa Elementary School, where she was transferred by the district after teaching at Washington Elementary School.

There was some confusion Friday about whether Petersen was still teaching students at Syringa Elementary up until the time of her arrest. School District 25 officials cleared this up by issuing the Friday evening press release that stated Petersen had been placed on administrative leave on Jan. 7, 2018, because of the criminal investigation.

The district said via its Friday evening press release that Petersen was removed from administrative leave this past Monday because “there was no indication from the authorities of any safety risk.” But before she could return to the classroom she was put back on administrative leave on Thursday following her arrest, the School District said.

Petersen will remain on administrative leave until further notice, according to the district.

“This is a decision that was in the best interest of our students and the district,” School District 25 Superintendent Douglas Howell said in the Friday morning press release. “As a public school district, we accept the responsibility to protect the safety and well-being of our students and staff in a positive learning environment. This is an obligation that we take very seriously, and one that prompts us to take swift, consistent action when necessary.”

Petersen, who has retained Shane Reichert of Pocatello as her criminal defense attorney, was released from Bannock County Jail on her own recognizance on Thursday and is expected to enter a plea on the charges against her during a Tuesday hearing at the Bannock County Courthouse in Pocatello.

In addition to the possibility of serving the rest of her life in prison if convicted, Petersen may be required by the court to pay specific restitution costs incurred by the alleged victim as a result of her actions.

Howell said in the district’s Friday evening news release, “At this time, our first priority is to reinforce to our learners and their parents that we take any reports of sexual assault and misconduct very seriously.”