CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – An Iowa teacher’s appearances on national television shows to discuss her sexual relationship with a student convinced prosecutors to upgrade her pending criminal charge to a felony.

Former Washington High School substitute teacher Mary Beth Haglin initially faced a misdemeanor charge for an affair with a student during the 2015-16 school year, and she’s attempted to clear her name by alleging the student seduced her with big words in a series of interviews with national media outlets like the Dr. Phil show, Inside Edition, and Crime Watch Daily, the Express reports.

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“The student is the one who seduced me,” Haglin told Dr. Phil earlier this month.

“Because I was having sex with a student I was fired from my job. I now have to work as a stripper. The name I go by is Bambi,” she said. “Many people see him as the victim and me as the perpetrator. From a psychological standpoint, and from every other standpoint, I feel like I am the victim.”

Prosecutors disagree, and upgraded her serious misdemeanor to a felony because in her interviews she “admitted engaging in a pattern or practice of sexual conduct with a student while employed as a teacher at Washington High School, which supports the more serious felony offense,” according to court records cited by the Associated Press.

Haglin, then 23, started a relationship with a 17-year-old student over Facebook in September 2015, and the two began having sex daily in October 2015 – at the student’s home, her home, in their vehicles and at local parks. She sent the boy nude images, he shared them with friends, and two students eventually busted together in public in June. The two students who discovered the relationship posted a video of the encounter on Twitter, according to the Des Moines Register.

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During the relationship school officials investigated rumors, which were initially dismissed as unfounded. Haglin left the school at the principal’s request in May, but was not removed from the districtwide substitute pool and continued to substitute teach at other schools before she admitted to the relationship in an interview with KWWL.

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Several school officials involved with the case retired over the summer and the school board agreed to pay them a total of $350,000 in severance bonuses over the next four years, The Gazette reports.

Haglin pleaded not guilty to a misdemeanor sexual exploitation charge and has since gone on a media tour to profess her innocence, telling Dr. Phil the student wooed her with handwritten Post-It notes, texts and other romantic gestures, and took advantage of her during a vulnerable point in her life.

She also admitted to Dr. Phil that she sent the student nude and racy pictures of herself in return.

“You have got to be dumber than a box of rocks to share naked pictures with a 17-year-old boy,” Dr. Phil said.

“I fell head over heals for him,” Haglin said. “We began a physical relationship. We had sex almost daily – in his car, my car, his mom’s house and his dad’s house.”

“I did think it was something I could keep secret,” she said. “The student twisted my brain into accepting this relationship. He did so with such intelligence and such an elevated vocabulary that I was completely duped by the whole façade.”

Haglin also alleged the teen threatened to “burn my life to the ground” when she attempted to end the relationship.

Her criminal trial begins Nov. 14.

Haglin’s initial misdemeanor charge carried a maximum two-year prison sentence, while the felony exploitation charge is a potential five years in prison.