Inset: Michelle Solis (Butte County District Attorney’s Office). Background: The junior high school where she sexually assaulted one of her students (Google Maps).
A California teacher who admittedly sexually assaulted one of her eighth-grade students the day he graduated from junior high has been sentenced to spend the next four years in prison.
In April, Michelle Christine Solis, 46, changed her not-guilty plea to a guilty plea on one count of sex with a minor, according to the Butte County District Attorney’s Office. On Thursday, she was belatedly sentenced by Butte County Superior Court Judge Michael Deems.
Sentencing in the case had originally been slated for June 6.
At the time of the incident, Solis was the boy’s teacher at Sycamore Junior High School in Gridley — a small Northern California town some 56 miles north of Sacramento.
In the weeks before his eighth-grade graduation, the since-condemned woman friended the boy on Instagram and began messaging him, prosecutors said. Evidence provided by the state showed the teacher sent the child four explicit photographs of herself. Then, on the day the boy graduated, the two engaged in “sexual intercourse” in her classroom, according to a recent press release.
The teacher made sure to lock the door of her classroom, prosecutors alleged in an earlier press release about the case.
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“Rumors and copies of the photos began to circulate in the Gridley community in October 2023,” the DA’s office said. “A Gridley Police investigation ensued and investigators contacted the boy and reviewed the contents of his phone. There they found communication between Solis and the boy, including two explicit photographs of Solis that matched the descriptions the boy previously provided.”
Solis was arrested on Nov. 13, 2023. She immediately made bail on $15,000 bond and had been free pending her sentencing until June 27, when the defense requested an additional continuance of the punishment phase.
In the interim, community members in Gridley were incensed that Solis had the temerity to show up at Little League games while out on bail, according to a report by Chico-based CBS and The CW affiliate KHSL. Outraged parents posted anti-“pedo” signs on chain link fences in protest.
During the sentencing hearing, the woman’s attorney tried unsuccessfully to obtain a much lighter punishment.
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Asking the judge for probation, the defense attorney described the crime between the teacher and student as just “one act.”
Prosecutors fiercely contested that characterization.
The district attorney’s office argued for the maximum sentence — and received it, after citing the nearly 30-year age gap between the defendant and the victim, Solis’ “position as a trusted community member,” and a pattern of conduct that amounted to “grooming.”
Prosecutors also pointed out that Solis gave the boy “special treatment” in school, that the pair made “numerous social media contacts” before things were all said and done, and that the teacher asked the child to delete their communications and the photographs she had sent him.
Solis will now be required to register as a sex offender and must stay away from the victim for 10 years, the court ruled.
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