FORT WORTH -- Brittni Colleps, the former Kennedale High School teacher sentenced to 5 years in prison for having sexual relations with five of her students, appeared on national television Friday along with her husband, insisting she is a good person despite the wrong choices that she has made.
"I accept responsibility for the things that I've done wrong and I understand that people have negative opinions about me and that's fine but people's negative opinions about me are not me; they're not who I am," Colleps told Anderson Cooper and Nancy Grace on Anderson Live via a broadcast from the Cold Springs jail in Fort Worth, where she awaits her transfer to prison."I know that I’m a good person and I know that I’m a changed person,” said Colleps, 29, who has appealed her conviction. “So regardless of what happens, all I’m going to do from this point forward is to continue to better myself in any way that I possibly can."Colleps’ husband, Chris, and Tarrant County Assistant District Attorney Elisabeth Beach, the prosecutor in Colleps’ August trial, appeared in person on the show. Chris Colleps told audience members that he continues to support his wife "100 percent" because of his Christianity. "Jesus Christ would never turn his back on the church so I will never turn my back on my wife," he said.Colleps said her husband visits her everyday in jail and that she gets to see her three children, ages 8, 6, and 5, every weekend.Chris Colleps said he and his wife have explained her absence to the children, without going into details of her crime."When children make bad choices, they go to time out or get grounded," Chris Colleps said. "When Mommy made bad choices, she had to suffer consequences for those choices."Colleps, who was convicted on 16 counts of improper relations between an educator and student, said she wasn’t really thinking when she engaged in sexual relations with several of her students."I was at a really dark point in my life," Colleps said. "We were having other problems going on at the time. I really just had a lapse from reality and I made some bad choices."Still, she said, she never showed the students any preferential treatment in the classroom and believes that her actions are different than teachers who have become involved with underage students. The five students she was found guilty of having improper relations with were all 18 or 19."Everything that happened, happened between consenting adults," she said. "At 18 years old, they’re able to vote for our president, the person who is going to run our country, so I don’t understand."With her trademark abrasiveness, Grace at times condemned Colleps and her husband during the segment."Number one, the age doesn’t matter," Grace said. "The law says this is illegal!"Grace also scoffed at Colleps’ earlier comment in an interview with 20/20 that she felt like a victim because she didn’t realize a student was recording one of her sexual trysts with four students. "She’s not the victim!" Grace said.Colleps insisted Friday that she had no idea that her sexual escapades with the students were videotaped. She said when she can be heard on the tape telling one of the students to get the light out of her face, "I didn’t even know it was a camera or anything. I just thought it was a light."A male teacher in the audience also criticized Colleps, saying he was disgusted by her "absolutely reprehensible behavior" and that her husband is hiding "behind a false front of Christianity.""As a male teacher, if I tried to do something like this, I’d get a lot more than the 5-year slap on the wrist that you’re getting," the teacher said. "You deserve not only to lose your job but to have to be a registered sex offender for the rest of your life."Visibly angered by the reception received, Chris Colleps said he and his wife did not go on the show for a "bash fest.""We came on this show to show how God has fixed our broken marriage," he said. "Our broken marriage is because I didn’t do the right things as a spiritual leader in my home. I blame myself a lot for this situation."Chris Colleps said he had committed adultery before his wife every thought of such digressions."I have just as much on my shoulders for this getting to this point as she does," he said. "None of us are perfect. All of us are broken people."Twitter: @deannaboyd
