Bobo placed in pre-trial diversion

A Liberty school teacher who bought a firearm to school last year was placed on pre-trial diversion Wednesday in Bedford County General Sessions Court.

Dawn Bobo was sentenced to 11 month, 29 days of probation, will have to forfeit the weapon and pay fines and court costs.

If Bobo successfully completes all the terms of the pre-trial diversion, the charge would be expunged from her record.

Pre-trial diversion is something that the state legislature grants to a person who has never had any kind of criminal conviction, with the exception of a Class "A" or "B" felony.

Defense attorney John Norton asserted last month that he and the state had agreed in principle to the pre-trial diversion, but a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) certification had to be attached to the memo of understanding before it could be made official.

According to Bedford County Sheriff's Department, Bobo claims she accidentally carried a .22 Ruger target pistol, which she kept for protection for coyotes while checking her rural mailbox, into Liberty School in December.

Bobo allegedly exclaimed she'd accidentally carried the gun into the building in her purse, then sent a student to School Resource Officer Robert Filer to inform him that she had the weapon.

According to Assistant District Attorney William Bottoms, based upon the officer's investigation, Bobo was charged with a Class "A" misdemeanor rather than a Class "E" felony, "because I don't think she went there with the intent to go armed."

"When she realized what she had done, she made the appropriate contact to the SRO (school resource officer), told him what she had done, was subsequently placed under arrest and taken into custody," Bottoms said.

However, no decision on when Bobo will return to the classroom will be announced until school superintendent Ed Gray returns from a conference next Monday.