Victim Says Sex with Teacher was Consensual

A 13-year-old Urbandale Middle School student told police last month that she had sex with her middle school teacher after he served her three mixed drinks, but that it was consensual and she was not forced, according to a report released by the West Des Moines police Department.

Police charged Benjamin Joseph Hoffman, 23, of West Des Moines with 11 counts of third-degree sexual abuse and related charges after Urbandale student and a former student, 14, from Norwalk alleged Hoffman forced them to have sex.

The girl told West Des Moines Police Officer Curtis Russell, who arrested Hoffman Wednesday, that her teacher began texting her in May “regarding such things as ‘cutting’ and how things were when he was a teenager,” according to the report.

READ MORE: More Details Released in Alleged Sex Abuse Complaint Against Urbandale Middle School

Later that month or in early June, he reportedly picked her up and took her to his home in West Des Moines and served her approximately three mixed drinks. The victim “stated that she was drunk, but … still knew what was going on,” Russell wrote.

According to the report, she asked for the alcohol and Hoffman never forced her to drink.

She told police she “hung out” with her teacher “four or five times” since the initial contact and her kissed her on occasion, sometimes at his apartment, but also at Saylorville Lake. Sometimes, they just talked, according to the report.

The victim’s mother said that on July 5, she received a call from a parent of a Norwalk 14-year-old her daughter was staying with and both had “snuck out.” When the victim’s mother asked where the girls were, she learned that Hoffman had picked them up and taken them to his West Des Moines apartment, the report said.

“Evidently, Hoffman used to substitute teach down in Norwalk and (the other teenager) has had sex with him as well,” Russell wrote in the report.

On May 30, Russell responded to Hoffman’s address to make a welfare check after Hoffman reportedly texting a crime alert “that he was suicidal and going to kill himself.”

The 13-year-old victim reportedly made the call to dispatch, according to the report.