Transcript Staff Writer

Former Norman North High School biology teacher and girls basketball coach Vicky Lynn Lewallen, 44, was formally arraigned Thursday on two counts of forcible oral sodomy.

District Judge Bill Hetherington entered a plea of not guilty on Lewallen's behalf, and ordered her to appear at the 9 a.m. Sept. 8 jury call docket.

Last August, a 17-year-old girl testified at Lewallen's preliminary hearing that she and Lewallen had an intimate relationship during the second semester of the 2006-2007 school year. Lewallen resigned from Norman North last June, following a suspension that came when the principal surprised the two alone in Lewallen's locked classroom the early morning of May 4.

Originally, Lewallen also was charged with two counts of rape by instrumentation. At the preliminary hearing, Special Judge Rod Ring found there was not sufficient evidence to bind Lewallen over on those two counts, but did find probable cause to bind her over on two counts of rape. He left it to prosecutors to elect first- or second-degree rape on how they interpreted the statute. The state appealed the ruling and Ring's decision there was not probable cause to bind over Lewallen on the rape by instrumentation counts, but District Judge Candace Blalock upheld Ring's finding. The state elected not to appeal Judge Blalock's decision to the Court of Criminal Appeals.

Defense attorney Steve Stice?argued for a demurr at the preliminary hearing which was the basis of Ring's rulings as to counts 3 and 4.

At Thursday's formal arraignment, Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Austin chose to keep the first two counts of forcible sodomy and not to file counts three or four.

Each count of forcible oral sodomy carries a sentence of zero to 20 years in prison.

Lewallen taught and coached girls basketball at Norman High School in the 1996-97 school year and then transferred to NNHS where she was a biology teacher and coached NNHS girls' basketball from 1997 to 2004.

Tom Blakey 366-3540 tblakey@normantranscript.com