Sexual text messages surprise Fruitland parents !!!!!!

[Daanyeer]

Source: http://www.idahostatesman.com/localnews ... 67156.html
Author: Katy Moeller


Parents of Fruitland High School's football team were surprised that one of their own is accused of exchanging sexually explicit text messages with one of the team's teen-aged players.

But an Idaho prosecutor said he's seeing more cases of older women abusing young men.

Sheryl A. Nawahine, 35, faces three felony counts of sexual battery of a minor for exchanging explicit text messages — plus sharing at least one photo and a video — with a boy who is a close friend of her teen-aged son and daughter.

She was indicted Friday in 3rd District Court.

Nawahine admitted to writing the messages police called "disturbing" and "very explicit and sexual in nature."

One of the more than 1,000 messages collected by police said, "u would never be able to be with a girl ur age again."

Both Nawahine and the boy told police they never made physical contact.

"I take full responsibility for my actions," she wrote in a statement Sept. 4. "I knew better the whole time. All the text and picture (sic) was generated by me, and no one else."

Nawahine did not return a call Monday. The Payette County Prosecutor's Office declined comment.

Nawahine's husband told KIVI Channel 6: "This was a lapse in judgement, and people are going to think what they want to believe. We have been upstanding residents of the community for years. Nothing was handed to us. We have worked hard to build a life here."

Some in this small community reacted with surprise.

Michelle Bake said her son, another Fruitland football player, is a good friend of Nawahine's son.

"They support one another," Bake said.

She said the Nawahines are a good family.

"I think this was a one-time stupid mistake," she said. "Do I think it was wrong? Absolutely. But I don't have a problem with (my son) being friends with that family."

Grant Loebs, a prosecuting attorney who's been with Twin Falls County since 1993, said he's seen more cases of female sex offenders reported now than he did a few years ago, but the percentage is still small.

He's dealt with cases of young women having relations with teen boys at parties, of mothers molesting sons or daughters, and more.

"Women are not usually holding a knife, or beating someone up. It's often one of these quasi-consensual things," Loebs said.

The law says minors don't have the ability to make reasoned, intelligent decisions about sexual encounters, he said.

Pete Keeton, whose son plays on the varsity team, said the news doesn't seem to have derailed the boys, who won their game Friday, the day Nawahine was indicted.

"I think they will get through this, keep doing what they are doing and stay focused," he said.

The head coach declined to comment, but police documents said a coach gave the tip that led police to the boy's phone, where the messages were found.

"The messages I read were that of a disturbing nature," Fruitland police Officer David Bruseau wrote in a report. "The messages were very explicit and sexual in nature."

The boy's mother told police that the family had gone to a party at the Nawahine residence. The mother noticed that Nawahine was playing love songs and flirting with her son.

Bruseau also interviewed the boy, and took his written statement.

"Aug. 6 we began talking jokingly about a dream I had of her," the boy wrote.

From that day on, he wrote, they flirted and talked about her masturbating.

"I proceeded to say stuff back, arousing her," the boy wrote in his report to the police Sept. 3.

He said he asked Nawahine for a photo of her, and she gave him one. She also showed him a video, he said.