A former high school girls basketball coach in Cullman County, Alabama, wants the charges against her dropped after she was accused of having a sexual relationship with a student.
Thirty-five-year-old Paige Adams, who previously coached at Cold Springs High School for one season, was arrested in April, CBS 42 reported Wednesday.
Authorities charged her with 32 counts that included a school employee distributing obscene material to a student, a single count of a school employee having sexual contact involving a student under 19, and one count of a school employee engaging in a sex act or deviant sexual intercourse with a student.
However, the suspect’s lawyers have asked a judge to dismiss the indictment “arguing that the alleged student in question was 18 years old and never attended Cold Springs High School. While not saying where the student went to school, the lawyers confirmed that it was another school within the Cullman County Schools system,” the outlet said, noting the motion also claimed she was never in a position of authority over the victim.
An image shows the suspect’s mugshot:
Adams resigned from her post after someone in the school district reportedly filed a complaint in March, and her husband, Drew, filed for divorce two weeks before her arrest, according to Breitbart News. He has since asked for sole custody of their child.
“Drew Adams is the boys basketball coach at Cold Springs and took the job only last year after nine successful seasons as coach at another high school when his wife was named head female coach at Cold Springs,” the article read.
Meanwhile, social media users questioned why so many such instances have been in the news. “So I’m reading stuff like this every single day. WTF?” one user asked, while another said, “Female or Male student? Teachers these days are outta control!”
In light of those questions, the Breitbart News article noted that “so-called ‘educator sexual misconduct’ comes in a variety of forms, not only involving teachers, but coaches, regular employees, school aides, and even administrators.”
The outlet added that its exclusive report “revealed that educator sexual misconduct in the past two decades has become ‘rampant’ in the United States, occurring in school districts large and small and ranging from small town public schools to elite academies in large cities.”