Tenn. teacher sentenced for kidnapping student

Tad Cummins, a Tennessee school teacher who kidnapped a teenage student prompting a nationwide search in 2017, was sentenced in federal court Wednesday.

Cummins pleaded guilty in April 2018 to transporting a minor across state lines for the purpose of criminal sexual activity and obstruction of justice. He transported then 15-year-old Elizabeth Thomas around the country, eventually getting stopped in California.

Thomas was taken in March and the pair were then found at a California cabin in April near Cecilville. In an interview with "20/20," Thomas said she was "scared." "I don't want to tell my parents that a grown man kissed me."

A statement from the victim called 52-year-old Tad Cummins “disgusting” and said the effects of his actions on her were “devastating and permanent.”

Prosecutors had asked for a 30-year sentence after Cummins pleaded guilty to transporting a minor across state lines for sex and obstructing justice.

The victim was in the federal courtroom in Nashville, but when the time came for her to speak, she did not come forward. After a discussion with the prosecutor and the judge, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sara Beth Meyers read the girl’s statement.

“What you did to me was unspeakable,” Meyers read. The victim’s statement said Cummins saw “a broken girl who was lonely, scared and traumatized.” She needed protection, the statement said, but Cummins only wanted sex. The statement also said the girl was convinced Cummins would have eventually discarded her had he not been captured near a remote California cabin in April 2017 after a national manhunt.

In arguing for a stiff sentence, Meyers focused on the preparation that Cummins put into his flight with the girl, including taking his wife’s car, which he thought would be less conspicuous than his own; filling a prescription for an erectile dysfunction drug; and taking out a loan so that he could pay for everything in cash.

U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger acknowledged that Cummins committed a “pretty despicable crime” but said there were also mitigating factors, including that he had no criminal record, that he was unlikely to reoffend, and that he promptly admitted to his crime and pleaded guilty. Cummins had asked for the minimum sentence of 10 years.

Prior to sentencing, Cummins broke down crying as he apologized for the harm he caused the victim, now 17, and his own family, some of whom were in the courtroom, including his two daughters.

Dressed in a gray-and-black-striped prison uniform, Cummins repeatedly said he had no idea why he did what he did, calling it a “misguided attempt to help that went sideways in a way I don’t know I’ll ever understand.”

He also told the victim’s family, “If someone had done this to one of my girls I would want to hurt them, and I fully understand if you feel that way about me.”

Cummins was given 20 years in prison with lifetime supervision during sentencing in federal court on Wednesday.