For one of the first times since Fabiana McLeod was sexually assaulted by former Concord teacher Primo “Howie” Leung in 2014, she felt relief watching him being led out of a Massachusetts courtroom in handcuffs on Wednesday.

Nearly nine years after the abuse first started, McLeod, who is now 21, her family and her friends filled the benches of the Middlesex County Superior Court in Massachusetts with tears in their eyes as Judge Sarah Ellis accepted Leung’s admission of guilt and sentenced him to a maximum of seven years in prison.

“I wanted to fight to the end but then I got the chance for this to be over and I was all in,” McLeod said afterward to the Monitor. “It was a lot but I knew I was going to see him and it was a relief seeing him getting walked out in handcuffs. But hearing him say he was guilty, that was the true start of my healing.”

Leung, now 40, first entered a not-guilty plea to multiple charges including aggravated rape of a child with a 10-year age difference, aggravated indecent assault and battery on a child under age 14 and two counts of aggravated indecent assault and battery on a person age 14 or older.

In May, the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office announced a plea deal had been reached between Leung and McLeod.

As part of the plea negotiations, Leung agreed to plead guilty to lesser charges, though still felonious sexual assault, for a maximum sentence of seven years in prison as opposed to the potential of life in prison.

“There is a strong desire by the commonwealth and the victim and her family to resolve this case without going through the further secondary trauma of preparing for trial, testifying, cross-examination and all that goes along with going to trial,” Assistant District Attorney Thomas Brant said in court. “We are suggesting that though the sentence we are proposing is slight, it still takes into account the impact that this has had and the serious nature of the incidents that have occurred.”

Leung’s trial, which was rescheduled for September, had been pushed back six times over the four years while Leung remained free on bail.

When McLeod first reported the crimes in 2018, Leung was arrested in Concord, but charged in Massachusetts because that’s where the most serious abuse occurred. The Monitor doesn’t typically name alleged victims of sexual abuse unless they choose to be identified. McLeod, who was 13 and 14 years old when the alleged abuse occurred, came forward publicly in May 2021 while filing the lawsuit against the Fessenden School, saying at the time that she wanted to help protect others.

As part of the plea deal, Leung will be required to register as a sex offender, undergo treatment and rehabilitation for sex offending, stay away from the victim and her family, comply with all state requirements and avoid applying for coaching or teaching licenses in addition to no unsupervised contact with children under the age of 16 with the exception of his children. Upon his release, he will be required to wear a GPS locator for the duration of his probation.

McLeod and her parents supported the plea deal in an attempt to gain closure of the criminal case, but the pain of Leung’s actions hasn’t faded.

“I still have traumatic flashbacks of him pinning me down, the scent of his deodorant and the prickly feeling of his face as he forced himself onto me, into me,” McLeod said in a statement to the judge. “When he raped me, he didn’t just violate me. He stole something I wasn’t ready to give away, especially to him. As much as I would like to portray myself as a strong, independent woman, I can confidently say that I don’t think I will ever fully heal from what this monster did to me.”

McLeod said she still lives in constant fear of what will happen to her next. Despite intensive therapy, she doesn’t foresee a day in her future where she isn’t haunted by the pain, trauma and shame she experienced at the hands of a teacher she trusted and confided in, she said.

“I am learning to exist for myself again and accept that I cannot control life, I can only experience it,” McLeod said in court through tears. “I am learning how to laugh and cry and feel through it all and welcome the confusion and joy of being alive. I am learning how to accept where I am in life and simply believe in the person that I am becoming but the constant battle to reconstruct myself will be the hardest of them all.”

Seated within view of McLeod, Leung gazed down at his hands without expression while McLeod and her parents took turns speaking about the pain and trauma he caused their family. When asked if he would like to deliver a statement of remorse to the victim and her family, he declined.

“I am taking into consideration the victim of this case to bring this matter to resolution and I have deeply considered the statements of the victim that she is an introspective and resilient person and I believe that she would benefit from closure at this time,” Judge Ellis said. “This is of compelling interest and the reason why I am adopting this plea agreement here today.”

Delivering her sentence, Leung was handcuffed by three officers of the court and led out the side door of the courtroom, his gaze cast downward.

The sexual abuse of the former Rundlett Middle School student began in 2014 when she was 13, Brant said during the plea hearing. Though McLeod was not Leung’s student at the time, she joined many clubs that he was involved with and utilized his assistance as a special education teacher at the school.

Leung groomed her and while gaining the trust of her family. As the school year progressed, he began to make sexual advances toward her by holding her hand when he would drive her home from school and kissing her on the lips affectionately.

Through the summer of 2015 between seventh grade and eighth grade, Leung invited McLeod and two other Concord students to join him at the Fessenden School summer ELL program in Newton, Massachusetts, where he acted as an assistant director at the camp. In the confines of her dorm room on campus, she was repeatedly sexually assaulted more than 20 times over the course of the summer.

During her eighth-grade school year in Concord and the following summer at the immersion program, the sexual abuse continued and Leung would become aggressive if she resisted. When McLeod attempted to distance herself upon entering high school, Leung asked her to keep their relationship a secret.

When asked if Leung committed the acts outlined by the prosecution, he said yes. Leung has not been charged with any sexual assault allegations in New Hampshire.

His arrest led to upheaval in the school district, including the firing of the school superintendent and the high school principal, who was Leung’s direct supervisor. An independent investigation paid for by the school district revealed administrators ignored numerous warning signs, allowed Leung to remain too close with students, and didn’t thoroughly investigate complaints against him.

In the fall, McLeod will begin her senior year at the University of New Haven in Connecticut. A varsity lacrosse player, she will graduate in May with a degree in business development that she wants to use to start a nonprofit to help others like her that went through similar experiences, she said.

“I’m hopeful, I’m excited and I’m ready to live,” she said. “I had days during school and lacrosse when I couldn’t go because my mental health was not good and I will still have days like that, but I’m excited to put more time and energy toward healing and living.”

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