A female teaching assistant has been jailed for having se x with four of her underage pupils – telling one of her victims “I just became a paedophile.” Child abuser Michelle Mellinger, 49, was arrested after colleagues at her school in Pennsylvania overheard students talking about romping with her.
A court heard how the predator, who told one student she liked “younger people”, targeted six pupils in total with one fleeing her home when she started to undress.
Her young male victims, aged between 15 and 17, said Mellinger would text them, before picking them up and taking them to her house for illicit sex sessions.
She even told one pupil that he was on her “bucket list”.
Mellinger said to another student: “I prefer younger people to older people.”
The paedophile, who was a special education teaching assistant at McKeesport Area High School, was jailed for between 11 and 23 months after pleading guilty to a string of sex charges.
Her charges included five counts of having intercourse or sexual contact with students and one of sexual assault.
The 263 days she has already spent in jail, since her arrest in October, have been credited to her sentence.