A former Northern California teacher pled guilty this week to sexually abusing one of her 14-year-old students on his eighth-grade graduation day.
According to a news statement from the Butte County District Attorney’s Office, Michelle Christine Solis appeared in Butte County Superior Court on Tuesday morning and pled no guilty.
Solis, 46, was not anticipated to plead no contest, according to the district attorney’s office, but she amended her plea and eventually “admitted her guilt.”
According to Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey, the event occurred in June 2021, while Solis was the boy’s teacher at Sycamore Junior High School in Gridley, California.
“She ‘friended’ him on Instagram and began messaging him in the weeks leading up to his graduation,” the district attorney’s office stated in a press release this week. According to people.com “Evidence showed that Solis sent the boy four explicit photos of herself before having sexual intercourse with him in a locked classroom on the day of the student’s 8th-grade graduation.”
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Rumors about the images began to circulate around the Gridley neighborhood in October 2023, as did copies of the photos she provided to the boy via social media.
Gridley police began investigating the rumors and obtaining the boy’s smartphone after his parents learned of the event, according to The Sacramento Bee. The district attorney’s office stated that investigators discovered “two explicit photographs of Solis” on the boy’s iPhone.
Solis was arrested in November of last year and quickly secured a $15,000 bond. According to the district attorney’s office, she will be released on bond until her June 6 sentence.
“As part of her plea today, Solis stipulated that she would be registered as a sex offender and could face up to four years in state prison,” according to the office.