Former choir director sentenced to prison

DULUTH (AP) -- A former East High School choir director was sentenced on Friday to two years in prison and 15 years of probation for having sex with two underage female students.

Eric Howard Holtan, 29, a teacher at the school from 1993 to 1997, pleaded guilty to several sexual encounters with the girls, who were 15 and 16 at the time. The girls were his students.

Judge Terry Hallenbeck sentenced Holtan to two years at the Northeast Regional Corrections Center. If he violates the terms of his probation, Holtan could be sent to prison for more than 16 years.

One of the students -- in a letter read in St. Louis County Court by her mother -- called Holtan a "sexual predator masked as a teacher."

"I had better things to do in school than be sexually and emotionally abused by my teacher," the victim wrote. "As long as I live I will never understand how people can be used for your own sadistic pleasure."

Holtan admitted he had sex with the students more than 50 times between 1994 and 1997, according to a criminal complaint. The sex took place in his East High School office, in his car and Duluth residences.

The father of one of the victims said the sex could not have been consensual because Holtan manipulated and emotionally trapped his daughter.