GRAND RAPIDS, Minn. - A former employee of a youth treatment center in northern Minnesota has pleaded guilty to giving drugs to a 15-year-old boy and having sex with him after helping him run away from the facility.
Thirty-year-old Melanie Lynn Peterson entered the guilty pleas in Itasca County District Court Tuesday.
Prosecutors say Peterson worked the night shift at the Northland Recovery Adolescent Unit in Grand Rapids when she allowed the boy to leave the facility around 12:30 a.m. April 26. A criminal complaint says Peterson instructed the boy to go to her apartment, where they later consumed Percocet and had sexual intercourse.
The teen later told investigators that he and Peterson were involved in an ongoing sexual relationship, and that they had intercourse approximately 20 times inside the secure facility, both inside his bedroom and in the employee bathroom.
Peterson's bail was revoked following her guilty pleas. Her deal calls for Peterson to receive a one year and one day executed prison sentenceon the Depriving Another of Custodial or Parental Rights charge, a 27 month executed prison sentence on the Third Degree Sale of a Controlled Substance charge and a 72 month executed prison sentence on the Criminal Sexual Conduct charge. The sentences will run concurrent with one another.
