A “monster” high school counselor has been sentenced to up to 40 years behind bars for having sex with an underage girl — at times in her school office — while promising to leave her husband and kids for her.
Jessica Finley, who was also the volleyball coach at McDowell High School in North Carolina, sobbed in court Thursday as she apologized for the “pain” she caused the vulnerable girl, who was just 14 when she started grooming her.
Her victim’s sister branded the school staffer “a predator … lurking behind the walls of the counseling office, waiting for a victim.”
“We would have beat the door hinges off that building to save her from that monster,” the teen’s mom also said in harrowing victim impact statements, according to McDowell News.
The teen was 14 when she initially turned to Finley to help with anxiety during her 2023-24 freshman year — which the trusted counselor used to groom the vulnerable student, eventually turning sexual.
Texts they started sending then “discussed details of their sexual encounters, as well as acts they wanted to perform on each other in the future,” according to court docs seen by WLOS, with prosecutors say the sex acts where mostly when the girl had turned 15.
Finley then told the girl she was “leaving her husband and children to be with Minor Child 1,” the docs showed.
The girl’s horrified parents found the texts and forwarded them to authorities, and Finley abruptly resigned in February 2024.
The girl revealed how Finley performed sex acts on her in her office and kissed her on the lips.
The teen also said she tried to stop seeing Finley — but the counselor threatened to take her own life, leading her to feel trapped.
Finley rejected a plea deal last April before pleading guilty to 16 sex crime charges – including carrying out a sex act with a student and offenses involving a child under the age of 15.
She was sentenced to a maximum of 40 years in prison, with a minumum of 28 years.
“I would just like to say I am so sorry for my actions and the things I have caused, for pain I have caused, for the [victim’s] family, my family and my own children,” she told the court.
