KATY, Texas – A senior at Morton Ranch High School in Katy is accused of bullying another student on a grand scale.
Katy school district police contend that between June and October, Robert Gutherie, 17, intimidated a younger classmate in to giving him up to $6,800. The younger boy allegedly stole the money from his parents.
Guthrie was arrested at school Monday and charged with aggregate theft, a state jail felony. He could get up to two years behind bars if he’s convicted. The thought frightens him.
“I’m very scared of what might happen to me and if I end up with a fine, the felony charge is going to keep me from getting a job,” Guthrie told Channel 2 News Thursday.
He insists he didn’t bully or intimidate the other boy. He said that they were actually partners.
“He was taking money from his parents to give it to me so I could purchase things for him and me to share,” Guthrie said.
Guthrie said they used the cash to buy videos, electronic games, game consoles and large amounts food. Purchases the other boy wanted to hide from his parents.
“It was all his idea. He was the one stealing the money to give it to me so I could supplement his desire for electronics, and his desire to binge eat. If I had know all of this I wouldn’t have done it,” Guthrie said.
It all came crashing down, he said, after they quarreled about which would keep an expensive Xbox One, and the other boy confessed to his parents.
Guthrie said it didn’t occur to him he could be committing a crime.
“My avarice came and bit me in the neck. And I just, it’s my own dang fault that it kept going, I could have stopped it any anytime, but I kept asking for more,” he said.
Guthrie is set to be arraigned in November.