Former South Shore teacher charged with sexually assaulting students pleads guilty

A former Cohasset Middle School teacher was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison Monday after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting two former students. 

Jeffrey Knight changed his plea one day before he was due to stand trial, court records show. In addition to his prison sentence, he received five years of probation with orders to register as a sex offender, have no contact with his victims, abstain from working with children, and have no unsupervised contact with kids other than his grandchildren, among other conditions. 

Knight’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday. His change of plea was first reported by NBC10 Boston. 

The Pembroke resident’s crimes date back more than a decade. In one case, prosecutors said Knight touched a student’s back and buttocks with his genitals and groped her breast and buttocks with his hand. 

In another case, a former student told authorities Knight slid his hand up her dress and touched her breast while complimenting her clothes and eyeshadow, according to court documents. She was in the eighth grade at the time. 

Knight pleaded guilty to five counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under the age of 14 in the first case and charges of indecent assault and battery on a child and assault and battery in the second. 

He was previously convicted in an earlier Quincy District Court case in 2021 after being accused of inappropriately touching a student when she was 13 and 14 years old. One former student, now a 23-year-old, addressed the court at Knight’s sentencing and said his abuse shadowed her through high school and college. 

“Having the most personal parts of my life, my body, and my trauma dissected in this setting has been humiliating and violating,” she said in her victim impact statement, a copy of which was shared by prosecutors. “There is no amount of sympathy, attention, or any sentencing that can make me whole again. … I would not be here unless I truly believed that what Jeff Knight did to me, and to other young girls, was wrong.”

She described Knight’s actions as “deliberate intimidation, grooming, and coercion” and said the former STEM teacher’s tactics included complimenting girls on how their legs looked in leggings and pressing himself against their backs under the guise of demonstrating part of a lesson. 

“This buzzer-beater plea deal is offensive,” she added. “Jeff has evaded responsibility for nearly a decade and for this reason, I don’t believe he feels remorse let alone has been rehabilitated.”

She further noted the toll Knight’s prolonged legal battle has taken on her most formative years.

“I lived 12 years of life before he first assaulted me, and I’ve spent the 12 years since trying to seek closure,” she said. “He took the better half of my youth, each moment of my life since then overshadowed by fear, isolation, and the weight of a crime I should never have experienced.”

Abby Patkin

Staff Writer

Abby Patkin is a general assignment news reporter whose work touches on public transit, crime, health, and everything in between.

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