Brittany Fortinberry, the Indiana substitute teacher accused of plying middle school boys with alcohol and psychedelic mushrooms before organizing group sexual encounters, has finalized her divorce, with her ex-husband walking away with sole custody of their child.
Nicholas Fortinberry completed the split earlier this week, severing the last legal tie to a marriage that began in 2020 and collapsed after his wife was hit with 47 criminal charges last September. The divorce settlement left Brittany Fortinberry, 33, with little more than her clothes, shoes, and makeup. Nicholas kept a 2022 Chrysler Pacifica and a Toyota 4Runner. He also secured sole custody of the couple's child while Brittany fights the charges in Morgan County.
The couple had already sold their shared home before the divorce was finalized. Proceeds from the sale were split evenly. Under the terms of the settlement, Brittany may regain legal custody of her child after her release from jail, but only if she is found innocent.
Fortinberry faces charges of sexual misconduct with a minor, dissemination of material harmful to minors, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, 47 counts in all. If convicted, she could face life in prison. The charges were filed in September 2025 after an investigation that began in August 2024, when two students reported that Fortinberry had sent them inappropriate videos and nude images through Instagram.
What investigators uncovered went far beyond digital messages. Fortinberry allegedly had middle school boys over to her house on a regular basis, supplying them with alcohol and psychedelic mushrooms, sometimes targeting students as young as 13. She then allegedly assaulted them.
One of the most disturbing allegations in the case: Fortinberry is accused of organizing a group sexual encounter in which she demanded the boys wear Ghostface masks, the black-and-white costume made famous by the Scream horror films. She also allegedly told the teens that if they reported anything, she would end her own life, a threat prosecutors treat as a tool of coercion and control over minors.
Before the 47-count case was filed, Fortinberry had already been under investigation in a separate matter. That earlier probe involved allegations that she sent photos and videos of herself to 17- and 18-year-old boys who served as teachers' assistants. Whether that investigation produced its own charges remains unclear.
TMZ first reported the divorce finalization, noting the lopsided terms of the settlement. Nicholas Fortinberry received both vehicles and full custody. Brittany received personal effects. The arrangement reads less like a negotiated split and more like a clean break from a spouse facing the possibility of decades behind bars.
The conditional custody clause is worth pausing on. Brittany Fortinberry may petition for legal custody only after release from jail and only if acquitted. That language suggests the settlement was drafted with the expectation that incarceration is a real possibility, and that both parties understood it.
Cases like Fortinberry's raise an uncomfortable question that school districts across the country have struggled to answer: how does a substitute teacher gain repeated, unsupervised access to minors in their own home? The allegations describe not a single lapse in judgment but a sustained campaign of grooming, alcohol, drugs, threats of self-harm to enforce silence, carried out over a period long enough for 47 separate charges to accumulate.
Morgan County authorities have not publicly detailed how many victims are involved in the case, or how long the alleged conduct continued before the first reports surfaced in August 2024. The school where Fortinberry worked as a substitute has not been identified in available reporting. Those gaps matter. Parents in the district deserve to know whether anyone inside the system saw warning signs and failed to act.
Fortinberry's current custody status, whether she is being held in jail or has posted bail, is not confirmed in public reporting. Her criminal case remains pending.
A divorce decree can divide cars and clothes. It cannot undo what 47 charges allege was done to children who were supposed to be safe at school, and the adults responsible for keeping them safe owe the public a full accounting of how it was allowed to happen.
