CENTRALIA, Wash. -- A former counselor admitted Wednesday that she had sex with a teen resident of the Green Hill state juvenile detention facility.

Erin Stiebritz pleaded guilty to first-degree custodial sexual misconduct. Stiebritz, who also goes by the name Snodgrass, said through her attorney that she made a terrible mistake.

Investigators say she was having sex with an 18-year-old male student starting in the last part of 2014.



Her defense attorney Blake Kremer said, "My client made a terrible decision ,and she's taking responsibility for it, and she's going to be paying for it for a long time."

The last time we saw Stiebritz she was being walked out of the juvenile detention gates in handcuffs heading for jail.

"This whole thing has been an incredibly painful process for her and her family and for everybody involved," Kremer said.

Officials at at the state Department of Social and Health Services say it was painful for them, too, because they say they go out of their way to protect the juveniles in their custody. Marybeth Queral, superintendent of Green Hill school, said, "We don't want victimization on this campus or any campus. Very disturbing to hear that these behaviors occurred or allegedly occurred."

State Patrol investigators believe the sexual encounters happened in Stiebritz's' counseling office. They say it went undetected until other staff members got suspicious of such things as Stiebritz hanging out near the victim's room. Investigators then found sexual letters Stiebritz wrote to the resident.

DSHS says there's zero tolerance for this. "Of course these are people where they are in a position where they're in charge of juveniles, any sort of inappropriate behavior in completely unacceptable," said Chris Wright of DSHS.

Sentencing is set for Sept.. Kremer says it's possible she'll get 14 days in jail, then 46 days in treatment. She will have to register as a sex offender.