It can’t be considered much of a shock when football players and cheerleaders get together off the field. But what happens when the cheerleader works for an NFL team, but the football player is still a high school student?
Well, that’s when law enforcement gets involved. Such is the case for 26-year-old Sarah Jones, captain of the Cincinnati Bengals cheerleading squad and a one-time English teacher in a Kentucky high school. Yesterday, Jones was indicted by a Kentucky grand jury for having sex with a 16-year-old high school football player.
Also indicted was Jones’s mother, who was dinged for apparently tampering with evidence of the relationship between her daughter and the high school kid. Jones, who had worked at Dixie Heights High School for five years, abruptly resigned from her teaching job last November when talk of the relationship first came to light. Both Jones and her mother denied the charges through a lawyer, who also implied that the alleged victim in the case and his parents were opposed to the prosecution.
This is not the first time Jones has been in the news. Back in 2009, a picture of Jones and Bengals kicker Shayne Graham was posted to the website thedirty.com, along with anonymous comments that indicated Jones had sexual relations with several Bengals players. Claiming her life had been ruined, Jones sued the website and gave interviews to several news outlets to talk about her plight. Last year, Jones was awarded an $11 million default judgment, but both sides are expected to return to court this summer.
Eric McErlain blogs at Off Wing Opinion, a Forbes “Best of the Web” winner. In 2006 he wrote a “bloggers bill of rights” to help integrate bloggers into the Washington Capitals’ press box. Eric has also written for Deadspin, NBC Sports and the Sporting News, and covers sports television for The TV News. Follow Eric on Twitter.