A federal judge has set the trial date for Tad Cummins, a former teacher accused of kidnapping his 15-year-old student Elizabeth Thomas.
United States District Judge Aleta Trauger set the trial date to July 25. Cummins will have until July 21 to take a plea deal if he wants to avoid trial.
The 51-year-old former high school teacher is charged with kidnapping and sex crimes after he allegedly manipulated Thomas, who was then his student, and took her across the country for 38 days. The two were found by authorities in northern California after a nationwide manhunt that lasted five weeks. The discovery was made in a remote cabin in Cecilville, California after a resident saw the pair and alerted authorities.
If deemed guilty of the accusations, Cummins is facing a minimum of 10 years to life imprisonment.
Cummins' public defender, Benjamin Galloway, issued a statement defending his client, claiming he has "no history of violence and no criminal history whatsoever."
Thomas' lawyer, Jason Whatley, said any suggestion that Thomas had willingly fled with the suspect is "amazingly absurd."
"This is classic grooming and manipulation," he said in a report from People, adding, "And I predict this case will be studied years in the future about how authority figures like Tad Cummins can mess up young children who believe their lies and are manipulated into doing things they would never do."
After returning home, Thomas was taken to work with psychologists and counselors in an undisclosed location in order to recover from allegedly suffering from a series of traumatic events.
According to The Tennessean, it's very rare that a defendant's trial gets set so quickly after an arrest, explaining that according to statistics, a felony case lasts for nearly 20 months on the average.
