Sexting with students nets teacher's aide one year in jail

A former teacher's assistant from Northern Alberta will serve one year in jail and two on probation for exchanging sexually explicit photos with two students at her school.

Charmaine Yuschyshyn was sentenced in Edmonton Wednesday after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography and online luring.

Yuschyshyn, a 40-year-old mother of two, said in an agreed statement of facts that in late 2012, her marriage was failing and she was lonely and frustrated.

She began communicating on-line with a pair of 16-year-olds male students.

While at first the conversations were ordinary chit chat, over time the exchanges became sexual in nature, with Yuschyshyn eventually convincing the boys to send her intimate photos and sending them naked pictures of herself.

Police were called after a mother of one of the boys saw the pictures and texts during a routine spot check of her son's smart phone.

Justice E.J. Simpson said while the victims were "vulnerable young people," Yuschyshyn "didn't start out with some premeditated intent of taking any advantage of these two teenage boys."  

"But over time, and with one more poor decision after the other, she eventually ended up in a far more difficult situation."

Simpson gave Yuschyshyn credit for taking responsibility for her actions by confessing and pleading guilty quickly.

"Everything I've heard about her, she has been otherwise a person of responsibility in her community, in her family."

Yuschyshyn was also charged with sexually assaulting one of the boys three times, but a jury in Peace River found her not guilty of the charges.  

Yuschyshyn remains married to her husband, waving goodbye to him as a sheriff led her out of the Edmonton courtroom to a jail cell.