A Knoxville, Tenn. grand jury has charged the 26-year-old wife of a former assistant football coach at a local high school for having sex with an underage player on the school’s football team.
The scene of the soap opera is South-Doyle High School, reports the Knoxville News Sentinel.
The wife who allegedly two-timed her assistant football coach husband with one of the players is Kelsey McCarter.
The coach, Justin McCarter, quit his coaching job earlier this year.
According to the grand jury’s presentment, Kelsey McCarter had sex with the student football player on at least a handful of occasions over a period of 11 months. The encounters occurred between Feb. 1, 2015 and Dec. 31, 2015, the presentment states.
The 26-year-old woman is also alleged to have communicated with the sophomore by sending — or possibly receiving — one or more raunchy images.
The brouhaha has caused notable repercussions at South-Doyle High. In February, school district officials had suspended South-Doyle High principal Tim Berry and head football coach Clark Duncan because the two administrators did not promptly report the allegations that Kelsey McCarter had a bunch of sex with a high school football player.
It’s not clear if the suspensions were paid or unpaid.
Berry, the principal, enjoys a taxpayer-funded annual salary of $102,690, according to the News Sentinel.
Coach Duncan, who is also the athletic director and an assistant principal, enjoys a taxpayer-funded salary of $86,641.
Justin McCarter, the assistant football coach with a wife who allegedly cheated on him with a sophomore player, brought home a yearly salary of $15,420.55.
In addition to his role as a football coach, McCarter was also an instructional aide.
Sheriff’s deputies arrested Kelsey McCarter on Thursday afternoon on 6 counts of statutory rape by an authority figure and another count for the image, according to Knoxville area CBS affiliate WVLT-TV.
Presumably, prosecutors will argue that the 26-year-old wife of an assistant football coach possesses some amount of authority over high school football players, even though Tennessee’s basic statutory rape laws appear to be sufficient to cover the allegations.
After apparently spending the night in the Knox County lockup, she posted bail of $30,000.
The next step in her trial process is an arraignment.
Duncan, the South-Doyle High football coach, wants to plow forward in his coaching career.
“He is and has been one of the most respected high school coaches in our state and a leader in our community,” Duncan’s attorney, Jeff Hagood, told the News Sentinel.
The South-Doyle High Cherokees football team finished 0-10 in 2015, a year after a much more impressive 12-1 in 2014.
Hagood added that he would be “very disappointed” if Duncan was fired just because criminal charges were filed after the wife of one of his assistants allegedly had sex with a sophomore player.
Students at South-Doyle High say they are still pretty weirded out by the whole kerfuffle.
“We can get our principal back, Mr. Berry. That’s the only thing,” senior Kerry Ledger told WVLT-TV. “School’s been going downhill since Mr. Berry left.”
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