Claudette Riley

CRILEY@NEWS-LEADER.COM

A former school nurse who admitted to having sex with a 15-year-old student in a Springfield parking lot will not be locked up.

Amanda Scheetz, 32, pleaded guilty to statutory rape in December and was sentenced to five years probation Friday by Greene County Circuit Judge Calvin Holden. The felony carried a possible penalty of up to seven years in prison.

She is not allowed to have unsupervised contact with any child under age 17, except her own children.

Scheetz is required to register as a sex offender. She does not yet appear on the registry maintained by the Missouri State Highway Patrol.

"She is incredibly sorry and remorseful and will be for the rest of her life," said attorney Nancy Price, who represented Scheetz in the case. "She feels terrible she betrayed the trust of the victim and the community."

Price added: "She is never going to do anything like this again."

According to a probable cause statement, the allegations surfaced in late 2015. At the time, Scheetz was the school nurse in Niangua — 35 miles east of Springfield — and the boy was a Niangua High School student.

Scheetz immediately resigned from her position.

The allegations were investigated by Webster County Detective Billy Miller and Springfield Police Office Tom Hicks. The boy was also interviewed at the Child Advocacy Center.

The boy told investigators that Scheetz drove him to Springfield and had sex with him in her car in the parking garage at Cox South Hospital, according to court records. The boy also told investigators that Scheetz continued to have contact with him after the trip.

In early 2016, she was arrested and bond was set at $7,500.