Atlanta school band director accused of ‘grooming’ student to have sex with him

ATLANTA — An Atlanta school band director has been convicted of sex charges involving a student.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis issued the following statement about the case: “When parents send their children to school, they have every right to expect they’ll be safe — especially from those entrusted to guide and protect them."

Jovan Burton taught symphony and marching band at Coretta Scott King Young Women’s Leadership Academy in Atlanta.

His defense to allegations that he had sex with a student was that text messages between him and the student were about a fantasy.

But a Fulton County jury this week found that his story was the fantasy.

Fulton County Chief Senior Assistant District Attorney Christina Clark and Deputy District Attorney Marshal Hodge with the District Attorney’s Crimes Against Children Unit spoke with Channel 2 Investigative Reporter Mark Winne about the case.

Hodge and Clark say Burton began cultivating a relationship with his future victim when she was in the eighth grade and eventually sent text messages that proved to be important evidence against him. They were direct messages through the band’s Instagram account.

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“I believe the key thing in this trial was the credibility of the victim. She was very consistent with what happened to her. She was able to provide the jury specific details of the relationship from how the defendant groomed her from eighth grade until she was a senior in high school,” Clark said.

“Grooming is when a predator takes a young child or a vulnerable victim and plays upon their vulnerabilities and builds trust,” Hodge said.

Clark and Hodge say it took a jury about an hour to convict Burton on three counts involving a law that makes it a crime for a teacher to have sex with a student.

“Judge Shermela Williams sentenced the defendant to 20 years to serve 15 in confinement,” Clark said.

“She was 18 at the time that they had sex. However, her age was not a factor in this case,” Hodge said. “A teacher having sex with a student is a specific crime in Georgia.”

By phone, Burton’s attorney Bruce Harvey said there was a long history of a very inappropriate relationship with the approval of the student’s guardian. He said that Burton will continue to fight for his innocence and that it was noteworthy that there are no allegations of sexual contact when the student was underage.

Clark and Hodge said a fellow student saw one of the direct messages on Instagram and reported it to a teacher.

The Atlanta Public Schools Police investigated and arrested Burton.

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