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MCKEESPORT, Pa. (AP) — A former teaching assistant has been ordered to stand trial on charges of having sexual relationships with six teenage students at a western Pennsylvania high school.
Forty-eight-year-old Michelle Mellinger of White Oak waived her preliminary hearing Monday in Allegheny County on more than a dozen felony charges including unlawful contact with a minor, institutional sexual assault and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.
Authorities allege that the former special education class assistant sent the McKeesport Area High School teens text messages between June 2013 and February and drove them to her apartment and another residence for sex.
She remains in custody pending a Jan. 4 trial after a judge denied a request to lower her $50,000 bail.
Mellinger cried in court, and defense attorney Jeffrey Wasak described her as "distraught and upset."
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