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Valley Student Resumes Relationship With Teacher Despite Sex Charges Against Him

By Nan Austin, MODESTO BEE

Credit: Modesto Bee/Debbie Noda

Enochs High School student Jordan Powers, 18, and James Hooker, 41, a teacher who recently resigned from Enochs High School (2-28-12) talk about their relationship.

April 18, 2012 Updated Apr 18, 2012 at 2:14 PM PDT

After fleeing cross country and making a very public breakup announcement, an 18-year-old Modesto student has moved back in with her 41-year-old former teacher -- despite charges he's facing that state he had a sexual relationship with an underage student 14 years ago.

The revelation that Jordan Powers and James Hooker are together again came Tuesday, the same day legislation inspired by their relationship was rejected in the state Legislature.

Neighbors at Hooker's studio apartment in Modesto reported seeing the couple together last weekend. Tuesday, Powers answered the knock of a Sacramento TV reporter and confirmed that they were reunited.

Management of the gated complex turned away media Tuesday afternoon and the couple did not answer calls or texts. But Tammie Powers, Jordan's mother, said her daughter left the Ohio home where she was staying several days ago.

A man whose apartment sits across from Hooker's said he saw the couple together Tuesday.

"I'm highly shocked she's back here," he said. "I thought her mom would talk some sense into her. But it shows how much he is in her head now."

The teen's about-face came about a week after she left the state, furious with Hooker after his April 6 arrest by Modesto police on a sex charge involving a different student 14 years ago.

Jordan Powers called her mother after officers left, and Tammie Powers helped her pack her bags. "She requested the distance. She asked to fly to Ohio. He's just not going to let her go," Tammie Powers said Tuesday.

Hooker remains out on bail but will return to court May 15 to face a charge of oral copulation with a 17-year-old in 1998. That girl attended a different Modesto high school and said she met him at a business club event he attended as a teacher at another school.

The day after the arrest, Jordan Powers stated, "He called me from jail and, yes, I told him that we're done." She said Hooker had lied to her about the earlier affair. "I lost everything for this guy. I lost my senior year. I gave up all my friends at high school because they didn't agree with me," she said.

Now she is back with Hooker, in the romance the couple revealed on syndicated TV shows. The pair gained notoriety after Hooker left his wife and three daughters, quit his teaching job and moved Powers into his apartment in February.

Both adamantly insist they were not physically involved until months after she turned 18 in September. Police, however, are investigating thousands of text messages sent between the two, including some that predate her birthday.

After Jordan left the state April 6, Tammie Powers said Hooker called the teen "relentlessly," and she acknowledged that her daughter began talking with him daily.

"She left on her own. She hired a cab and booked her own flight," Tammie Powers said. At this point, Jordan Powers has cut off all contact with her relatives, Tammie Powers said. "It is awful. This is what pedophiles, predators do. They isolate them from family," said Powers.

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