Former Fagaitua High School music teacher Rose “Losa” Auvaa has admitted in open court that he had sex with his 16-year-old female student, yesterday morning.

The 48-year-old teacher from Lauli’i was charged with rape, sexual assault, sodomy, deviate sexual assault and sexual abuse first degree, but in a plea agreement with the government, that was announced in the High Court, the defendant pleaded guilty to sexual assault.

According to the plea, defendant admits that he had sexual intercourse with the 16-year-old student from February 14, 2014- April 1, 2014.

The plea goes on to say that defendant admits that with regard to the offense, his conduct was without legal justification or excuse.

Upon acceptance of Auvaa’s plea of guilty the government moved for the court to dismiss the remaining charges. The agreement contains the normal legal caveat for sentencing, including that he understands and accepts that in the event the court decrees a different sentence than that recommended by counsel, defendant will not be allowed to withdraw his plea of guilt.

Chief Justice Michael Kruse accepted the plea agreement and scheduled sentencing for the defendant on October 16, 2015.

The sexual assault count is a class C felony which is punishable by up to seven years in jail.

According to the government’s case on Apr. 4, 2014 the defendant’s daughter reported a PPD to the Fagaitua SubStation. It’s alleged PPD incident occurred when the defendant’s daughter approached her father about an alleged relationship with a student from school.

The daughter told police that she had observed her father using the computer to send Facebook messages late at night. She accessed her father’s Facebook account and found a number of chat messages between defendant and his 16-year-old student. 

The daughter showed police the messages, which contained sexual content and references to sexual acts, which defendant and the female student performed on one another. Court filings say that police located the student and spoke with her. The student stated that her relationship with the defendant started on Feb. 12, 2014 when she asked her teacher to help practice a song.

Court documents allege that the day after the first encounter the defendant started talking to his student on Facebook and the communications on Facebook continued through to Apr. 7, 2014. It’s alleged that another sexual incident occurred on Mar. 14, 2014 inside the Fagaitua High School classroom, where they had sexual intercourse. Then on Apr. 1, 2014 another sexual incident took place — this time in the defendant’s car, in Auto.

The victim and her parents showed the Facebook messages (printouts) to the police, which included a message sent by the defendant on Apr. 2, 2014 telling the victim that his account has been hacked and not to contact him anymore and to delete all records of conversations between them, say court filings.