Stacie Halas, Porn Star-Teacher, Appeals Firing, Takes Matter To Ventura Court
Stacie Halas is appealing a professional standards board ruling that she lied about her porn career and deserved to fired from her job as an Oxnard middle school teacher.
Halas during her former career
The educator, whose story of being found out by students surfing the web mesmerized local and national media, is taking her case to the Ventura County Superior Court:
Her L.A.-based attorney, Richard Schwab, told us this:
We believe that as a matter of law an individual who has lawfully engaged in employment and not committed a crime and not hurt anybody should not be judged when ... services to that employer have met or exceeded performance standards.
The three-judge Commission on Professional Competence alleged repeated dishonesty, inability to be a role model, and immorality in its ruling against Halas bid to keep her job after she was fired last year.
petergirls.com
The board suggested that Halas moved on from two other Southern California districts after her past was discovered at those gigs as well.
Schwab says "she might not have been 100 percent accurate" to administrators, but adds:
Credibility issues were in fact manifestations of a person who was obviously very intimidated, confused and just feeling humiliated by the process.
The attorney said what Halas did before becoming a teacher (the board argued that she was still at the tail end of her career when she began teaching, and that her porn and classroom work overlapped) was her business:
I feel the adult industry is and continues to be a degrading and dehumanizing occupation to women. But it's also lawful and lucrative and generates billions of dollars of revenue for the California economy.
Schwab, who's not working pro bono, says it could take months before the case is adjudicated. In the meantime, Halas, out of work and unpaid, has been taking classes, "continuing to go to school," he said:
She is attempting to improve herself. She is a true believer in our system that we are a country that looks up to people making changes for the better. It's part of our history and part of our fundamental values as a nation.
[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]
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