On Friday, prosecutors reached a plea agreement with the former Connecticut schoolteacher who at one time faced up to 40 years in prison after being convicted of endangering minors. The charges stemmed from a 2004 incident in which a computer loaded with spyware displayed pornography to her students.

State prosecutors dropped four felony charges of "risk of injury to a minor" against her, with Amero pleading guilty to a disorderly conduct misdemeanor, according to the

A jury convicted Amero of the felony charges in January 2007, but the presiding judge in the case, Hillary Strackbein, set aside that verdict five months later, essentially granting Amero a new trial.

Amero will pay a US$100 charge and have her Connecticut teaching credentials revoked, said Sunbelt Software CEO Alex Eckelberry, who led the team of computer investigators that analyzed the school's computer and concluded that Amero was innocent.

"The stress of this thing,? it just totally freaked her out," Eckelberry said Friday. "For four years she's been sitting there with this thing hanging over her."