Redwood City woman gets 6 years in prison for sex acts with minor

in Crime/Featured/Headline

A teacher from Redwood City was sentenced to six years and eight months in state prison, with 917 days credit for time served, for engaging in a sexual relationship with a minor in her family, prosecutors said.

Dawn Giannini, 50, who was a substitute special education teacher, engaged in a sexual relationship with the victim when she was 16 and 17 years old, from Sept. 1, 2016 to March 11, 2018, the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office said. The victim recorded the sexual conduct on her cellphone, and the footage was ultimately uploaded to Pornhub, a pornography website.

In 2018, a classmate of the victim at Woodside High saw the videos online and reported it to the school’s principal, who notified the sheriff’s office.

The “investigation revealed that the defendant had been having sex with her family member,” San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said.

In addition to her prison sentence, Giannini will have to register as a sex offender and was ordered to have no contact with the victim for 10 years.

The arrest and charges rocked the Elks Club in Redwood City, where both Giannini and her husband socialized.