A former assistant coach for the Bear Lake High School softball team has been arrested after police say she engaged in sexual acts with a student athlete.

RiLee Ann Lutz, 28, of Paris, has been charged with two counts of sexual battery of a minor following a Bear Lake County Sheriff’s Office investigation that was launched in September 2022, according to police and court records the Idaho State Journal recently obtained.

Lutz is accused of engaging in sexual acts with the then 17-year-old female student athlete between September 2021 and June 2022.

The investigation into Lutz began after a counselor at Bear Lake High School, located in Montpelier, contacted sheriff’s deputies to report that a student had disclosed that a sexual relationship existed between Lutz and one of the student athletes at the school, police said.

The student had reportedly witnessed Lutz and the student athlete making out and also said there was a picture circulating around the school depicting Lutz and the student athlete kissing, according to the police report.

The Sheriff’s Office was unable to ever locate the picture but did conduct interviews with both the student athlete and Lutz, police said.

The student athlete told sheriff’s deputies that she and Lutz did engage in sexual acts that involved the pair kissing and touching each other inappropriately while in Lutz’s vehicle, police said.

The student athlete said the sexual encounters took place in the parking lot of the softball fields at Allinger Park in Montpelier and that Lutz told her to be really careful because, “If people find out, I’m in trouble,” according to the police report.

Lutz told sheriff’s deputies that her relationship with the student athlete was the same relationship she had with all of her players, police said. Lutz admitted to kissing the student athlete on two occasions and also admitted to an incident in which she and the student athlete became “handsy,” but said that it occurred after the student athlete turned 18.

The student athlete told law enforcement that some of the sexual encounters with Lutz occurred around homecoming, prom, the softball season and toward the end of the 2022 school year, police said.

Lutz was ultimately charged with the two felony sex crimes last month.

Bear Lake School District Superintendent Gary Brogan said Lutz was a volunteer softball coach who did not return to coach the team this school year.

Lutz was arrested on March 1. She appeared in front of 6th District Magistrate Judge Todd Garbett for an arraignment hearing on March 6, during which her bond was lowered from $75,000 to $5,000. She posted the bond on March 10 and was released from the Caribou County Jail in Soda Springs.

She was arraigned in 6th District Court on April 6 following a March 15 preliminary hearing.

Her case has been set to head to trial on July 17.

If convicted of the two felony sexual battery charges, Lutz faces up to life in prison and a fine of up to $50,000.