South Suburban Social Worker Accused of Sex with High School Sophomore

A 26-year-old social worker from Homer Glen, accused of developing a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old student at an alternative high school in Chicago Heights, appeared Saturday before a judge who set her bail at $250,000.

Brandi D. Edwards was working at Rise Alternative High School, 405 Ashland Ave., as an intern in conjunction with pursuing a masters degree when she met the 16-year-old sophomore last fall as his adviser, according to Cook County prosecutors.

She would write notes to the boy in his journal, prosecutors said. Then Edwards gave the boy her cell phone number and they began sexting, according to authorities.

Their first sexual encounter took place in her car in November, prosecutors said, after she picked him up at his house. Subsequent hookups were in her car, in a forest preserve and finally at a motel, according to prosecutors. Cook County assistant state’s attorney Cinthya Lee-Bassi said the woman confessed to the encounters. The teen-ager would check in at the motel with the woman’s credit card, according to authorities.

She was pursing her masters degree in social work at Governors State University, according to her LinkedIn profile, and expected to earn her degree in 2016. During her training, she served at schools in Justice, Crestwood and Park Forest.

“I am an emerging social worker and I know that I will need to change what habits I am in order to best assess my client’s needs,” she wrote in her LinkedIn profile. “I will also know that there will be times when I have to step back and separate personal from professional because I have such a big heart that I will not want my personal persona to interfere with my client in any way.”

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Edwards worked as a substitute teacher in Naperville, but her attorney Jim Ryan said she is no longer employed.

Edwards, who resides in the 14900 block of Wilco Drive in Homer Glen, will be placed on electronic home monitoring. The court has ordered her to have no contact with the student. She’s charged with criminal sexual assault.

“Some days I’m baffled,” Cook County Judge Adam Bourgeois Jr. said Saturday, according to the Chicago Tribune.

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