No Bond For Teacher Accused Of Fleeing To Mexico With 13-Year-Old Boy

Wednesday, November 7th 2007, 2:17 pm

By: News On 6

EL CENTRO, Calif. (AP) A judge denied bail Wednesday for a 25-year-old teacher accused of fleeing to Mexico with a 13-year-old student, and the woman agreed to be transferred from California to Nebraska to face the charges.

Kelsey Peterson's court-appointed attorney argued for $100,000 bail, but a federal magistrate judge in El Centro ruled she was a flight risk.

Kelsey Peterson showed no emotion as she told the judge that she agreed to be transferred. Peterson smile weakly at her attorney when she left the courtroom.

The boy immigrated illegally to the U.S. when he was much younger and speaks little Spanish. He shed no tears while Kelsey Peterson wept as the two parted Friday night at a police station in the border city of Mexicali, according to the Mexican official who captured the pair with the aid of a GPS-enabled cell phone.

``She said to the youngster that she loved him and would always love him in her heart,'' said Alfredo Arenas Moreno of the Baja California state police.

Kelsey Peterson is charged with taking a minor across state lines with the intention of having sex with him. The boy considered Kelsey Peterson his best friend, but not his girlfriend, and had sex with her ``maybe twice,'' he said in an interview at a home in Janitzio, Mexico, where he is staying with a family friend temporarily.

Authorities in Lexington, Nebraska, a meatpacking town about 200 miles west of Omaha, said during the week the pair were on the run that the teacher and her former student had exchanged romantic e-mail messages.