After an eight-month investigation, a dance instructor from Coral Springs has been arrested for having a sexual relationship with one of her male students.
On Friday, Jennifer Efre Deberry was booked on felony lewd and lascivious battery by police. The 30-year-old allegedly started her relationship with the unnamed student when he was 15. As part of the evidence sealing the deal, police say there are 117 pages of creepy, hot-and-heavy text messages between the two.
"Oh my love its so amazing that today was so incredible for you ;D It really was very incredible for me too <3 It was so perfect and amazing and making love with you was just the greatest feeling in the whole world <3 :D XOXO," the 30-year-old Deberry allegedly wrote to her victim, NBC Miami reports.
Police say the two first met at Dance Effect Studio, a strip-mall outfit located off Royal Palm Boulevard. According to this 2009 Dance Magazine article, Deberry was the studio's artistic director. Police say that she first met the victim when he was 13 but that the relationship didn't begin until the boy turned 15, around September 2012.
The sexual relationship ended last January. Police say the last time the pair were together was for five hours at Deberry's Coral Springs apartment. It's unclear how the cops first learned about the situation.
The electronic bread crumbs spellings out the situation were pretty clear, according to police. Not only did the pair swap text messages, but emails and info on Facebook also helped the cops put the situation together. Just from what's been released so far, the weirdest aspect of the case is the tone Deberry takes in the messages; studding her texts with hearts, emoticons, and overenthusiasm, she sounds more like a gushing 15-year-old girl herself than a 30-year-old woman.
"I hope one day I will be their daughter-in-law," she allegedly wrote in one message (unclear who the "their [sic]" is). "I can't believe how I want to spend the rest of my life with you and I'm sure of it <3 I love you more than anything and I have loved you for a long time."
Another text reads: "Its hard to imagine that it would ever possibly get any better than this weekend was. I'm going to miss you all day tomorrow until I see you, but it will feel great when I do. I love you."
"Knowing Jen, I don't think it's a predator thing. Obviously, from the way I know Jen, it had to be some kind of intense feeling," a neighbor told Local 10.
Deberry's own social media footprint is pretty limited. A Facebook page that possibly belongs to her appears to be on lockdown. At the 2009 Tremaine Dance Convention and Competition in Orlando, the instructor took home fourth place for lyrical and first for open dance.
She's currently out on a $10,000 bond.
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