High school football coach's wife pleads guilty to having sex with 16-year-old team member

A woman has pleaded guilty to having sex with a 16-year-old student on her husband’s American football team.

Kelsey McCarter was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to seven charges, including counts of statutory rape, after having sex with the student in her home on several different occasions while he was living with her in 2015.

The 27-year-old pleaded guilty ahead of her trial, which was due to begin on Thursday, in exchange for receiving the minimum amount of jail time and will be eligible for parole after serving just 30 per cent of her sentence.

She initially faced a maximum of 38 years in prison.

​McCarter’s husband Justin, who served as an assistant football coach at South Doyle High in Knoxville, Tennessee, invited the boy – who cannot be named for legal reasons – and his older brother to live with the couple and act as a mentor to them after they began acting out and skipping school at home.

There have been no allegations of abuse of the boy’s brother.

During the period the boys lived with the couple a sexual relationship developed between McCarter and the boy.

The pair had sex six times in her home and her car between 1 February and 31 December 2015 – including once while she was driving him back to live with his mother again, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported.

She is also alleged to have sent a topless video of herself to the victim.

Speaking in mitigation her defence lawyer, Doug Trant, said: “She made a mistake. She'll move past it. She's young, and as you saw, her family is here in support of her. Her husband is strongly supportive of her.”

“She's very sorry about what happened, she's sorry she put her family through this. It's tough and it will continue to be tough”, she added.

The abuse reportedly first came to light in January 2016 when assistant principal Clark Duncan told Principal Tim Berry that a staff member’s wife had shared “compromising photographs” with the student.

Mr McCarter told Mr Duncan that the student had been “blackmailing him” and his wife over the photo, which was dated 23 December 2015, on 27 January 2016.

Mr Berry reported the allegations to the Department of Children’s Services the next day.

The student denied the allegations and McCarter resigned from his position in February 2016.

Mr Berry and Mr Duncan were subsequently placed on paid administrative leave during an investigation into whether they had failed to immediately report allegations of child sexual abuse.

They were restored to their posts in May 2016 but only after receiving formal, written reprimands.

As of 2016 the boy and his brother are living with their mother once again and are attending a different high school.

McCarter has been ordered to report to prison on 30 October.