A former Charlotte, N.C., schoolteacher now living in Statesboro has been accused of having improper contact with a student 30 years ago.

Monte Sue Diebolt, 73, was charged last month in Charlotte with a felony count of taking indecent liberties with a child.

A man told Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department officers that he had been forced to touch Diebolt inappropriately and against his will at Marie G. Davis School during the 1982-83 school year, when he was a sixth-grader at the school.

Charlotte attorney Melissa Owen said her 41-year-old client decided to come forward last year after talking with his family, according to The Associated Press.

“My client decided that this was a wrong that he needed to right,” Owen told The Charlotte Observer. He added that part of his reason for coming forward was that he was afraid others might have been abused, The Observer reported.

Owen was traveling Monday, according to an employee at her law firm, didn’t immediately return an email message from the Statesboro Herald.

A phone message left at Diebolt’s Statesboro home Monday morning was not returned, and several other media outlets report that their efforts to reach her for comment have been unsuccessful.

Owen told The Observer that Diebolt at first gave the victim candy and notes, then would ask for his textbook and return it with a note asking him to stay after class. The contact would occur then, Owen said.

The attorney added that the victim first told police of the situation last February and that before Christmas, Diebolt apologized to him over the phone, The Observer reported.

Diebolt's attorney, George Laughrun, of Charlotte, told the Herald on Monday that his client will plead not guilty.

He said he is waiting for an arraignment date to be set in Mecklenburg County Superior Court. The arraignment could take place within the next two months, but it could be a year before the case goes to trial, he added.

Laughrun told The Observer that his client drove to Charlotte from Statesboro with her husband and son and surrendered herself once she learned of the arrest warrant against her.

According to the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office website, Diebolt was booked into the jail shortly before noon Jan. 21 and released about six hours later.

Diebolt taught at Marie G. Davis elementary school from 1972 until 1985, when she moved to a junior high school in Charlotte, the AP reported.