POCATELLO — A 41-year-old local woman was sentenced Monday to serve at least 10 years in prison for sexually abusing a 17-year-old boy in 2021.

Annette Dee Reed, of Pocatello, received the sentence from 6th District Judge Javier Gabiola during a hearing held at the Bannock County Courthouse.

Reed was ultimately sentenced to serve a unified 20-year prison sentence but will only be required to serve 10 years behind bars before being eligible for parole. The sentence was imposed after Reed entered into a plea agreement with Bannock County prosecutors in September, court records show.

The plea agreement involved Reed pleading to one felony count of sexual battery of a child via a lewd or lascivious act in exchange for prosecutors dismissing two other felony sex crime charges filed against her, according to court records. Additionally, the Bannock County Prosecutor’s Office agreed to limit its recommendation against Reed to no more than a unified 15-year prison sentence.

Reed was charged alongside her long time boyfriend, Skyler David Norton, 41, of Pocatello, who was initially charged with two counts of sexual abuse of a child, sexual battery of a minor child and the production of sexually exploitative material of a child, all felonies.

Norton also entered in a plea agreement with Bannock County Prosecutors in September that resulted in him pleading guilty to one felony count of sexual battery of a child via a lewd or lascivious act in exchange for prosecutors dismissing the other three felony sex crime charges filed against him, court records show.

As part of the plea agreement, prosecutors agreed to cap the prison recommendation against Norton at 35 years, of which at least 10 of those years would be mandatory, according to court records.

Norton failed to appear for the sentencing hearing alongside Reed on Monday and a bench warrant was issued for his arrest.

The sexual battery of a minor child charge against both Norton and Reed alleges Norton forced a 17-year-old boy to engage in sexual intercourse with Reed between April and May 2021. The exploitation charge against Norton alleges he produced a recording of the boy being forced to engage in the sexual act with Reed.

The first sexual abuse of a child charge both Norton and Reed faced alleged they forced a 14-year-old girl to watch Reed and Norton engage in sexual acts sometime between April 2021 and January 2022.

The second sexual abuse of a child charge both Reed and Norton faced alleged they forced a 12- to 13-year-old girl to engage in a sexual act with both Reed and Norton between April 2021 and January 2022.

The Pocatello police investigation into the incident began on January 22, 2022, when a woman living in Las Vegas called dispatch to report that she believed children living in Pocatello were being both physically and sexually abused by Norton and Reed.

That same day, Pocatello police responded to the place of employment for the 17-year-old boy.

The child said that Reed and Norton had forced him to engage in sex acts with Reed when he was ages 5, 6 and 10 years old. The boy said that child protective services investigators were called to investigate the incident when he was 10 and that Norton and Reed instructed him and the other children to lie to them, according to police reports.

The 17-year-old boy was then asked whether it was true that he was recently forced to engage in sex acts with Reed while Norton filmed the interaction, and the boy confirmed the incident occurred sometime in April or May of last year, police said.

The Pocatello police investigation lasted between January and April 2022 and involved multiple children participating in two forensic interviews at a local child advocacy center.

During the interviews, two children reported having been forced to engage in sexual acts with Reed, of which one of the incidents Reed recorded using his cellphone, according to police reports.

As a result of the plea agreements both Reed and Norton reached with prosecutors, two victims were allowed to provide the court with victim impact statements Monday despite the dismissal of the criminal charges against Reed and Norton related to the abuse the two victims allegedly suffered by their actions.

Both girls, who are under the age of 18, told Gabiola that they believed Reed was just as guilty as Norton and that she deserved to face more than just the five years in prison that Bannock County Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Erin Tognetti was bound to recommend.

Reed’s Pocatello attorney Rilie Fry argued that Reed should face a unified prison sentence of 10 years, with four of those years being mandatory, adding that he believed Reed has shown that she would benefit from sex offender treatment as she has already been receiving substance abuse treatment.

Fry read a statement on behalf of Reed that said she has been learning about taking accountability for her actions and that she has regularly been participating in Alcoholic Anonymous meetings as a part of her substance abuse treatment.

Tognetti argued that the criminal allegations against Reed were not the result of Reed suffering from a substance abuse issue or that she lacked the cognitive ability to understand that what she was doing was wrong.

In handing down the sentence, Gabiola said there was no question that Reed’s conduct negatively impacted the protection of society, that she was a risk to the community and that her actions “were reprehensible.”

After delivering the sentence, Gabiola scheduled a separate hearing to determine how much restitution Reed will be forced to pay the victims and investigative agencies.

He ordered that Reed must register as a sex offender and extended a no-contact order between her and the victims in this case for at least the next 20 years.