Neb. teacher: Grandparents get daughter

A schoolteacher accused of having sex with a 13-year-old male former student wants custody of her 8-year-old daughter to go to her parents, not the child's father, her lawyer said Wednesday.

A hearing is set for Dec. 5 to determine temporary custody for the daughter of Kelsey Peterson, who is facing federal and state criminal charges for fleeing with the former student to Mexico.

A judge last week granted emergency legal custody of the girl to the child's father, William Alexander Long of Texas. The girl had been staying with Peterson's parents in Gothenburg, Neb.

Peterson gave birth when she was a high school junior. Long was Peterson's boyfriend and classmate. Long and Peterson never wed and broke up in 2001, according to court documents.

"There's not that much contact, (the daughter is) not comfortable with him," Peterson's lawyer James Martin Davis said. "She saw a therapist and said she doesn't want to go to Texas. She cries because she has to go with them."

A telephone message left for Long's lawyer, Robert Parker, was not immediately returned Wednesday.

Long has said he was seeking custody of his daughter because he feared that she could suffer irreparable harm as a result of Peterson's actions, according to court documents.

Long said that he was in the investment business and that he has been married for five months. The couple lives in McKinney, a Dallas suburb.

Davis is not representing Peterson in the custody case, but said he spoke to her by phone about the case on Wednesday.

Peterson, 25, and the male former student of hers were found in Mexicali, Mexico, on Nov. 2. The boy has told The Associated Press that he didn't consider Peterson his girlfriend but that they did have sex.

Peterson faces federal charges of crossing a border to have sex with a minor and state charges of kidnapping, child abuse and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

The Associated Press had previously named the boy as police searched for him but stopped using his name in reports after authorities charged Peterson with a sex crime.