Posted on 08/21/2025 11:54:11 AM PDT by BenLurkin
A one-time Colorado “counselor of the year” is accused of sexually assaulting a female student over several years — and threatened to kill herself if the girl ever came forward, according to police.
Cassandra Poncelow, 40, met her accuser in her high school counseling office in the Poudre School District in Fort Collins, Colo. — and later began bringing her to her home for “sleepovers,” according to court documents obtained by 9News.
The student — who is now an adult — met with police in July and claimed she was assaulted more than 100 times over several years at Poncelow’s home.
Police did not say exactly when the alleged assaults occurred, but Poncelow worked for the school district from 2007 to 2024.
The student told police she felt like she wanted to die after the alleged sexual assault — but claimed Poncelow told her, “If you tell anyone, I’ll kill myself,” according to CBS News, citing the police report.
Poncelow — who has since become sober — later expressed shame, claiming she fell in love with the student while accepting that it “was not okay,” according to the police report.
Poncelow was named Colorado’s 2016 “counselor of the year” by the Colorado School Counseling Association and was a finalist for the American School Counselor of the Year award in 2018, the Coloradoan reported.
She was arrested Tuesday and is charged with sexual assault, sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust, criminal attempt to commit sexual exploitation of children and aggravated sexual assault on a client by a psychotherapist.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Not making any excuses whatsoever for the pervert adult, but this high school student allowed herself to be abused over a period of years? What? This is a teenager and not a 5-year-old.
I can believe she could have been tricked into not telling on the perv, but why not just say no to the subsequent “sleepovers” if she felt like she wanted “to die” because of the assaults?
Exactly
That’s a lady?? She doesn’t have great jeans... 😀
That's an insult to Danny Bonaduce...😀
In the old days he would have been tarred and feathered and escorted out of town on a rail ... to the nearest tree hosting a noose.
I don’t see an age of the student when this took place. Old enough to make a judgment call as to whether or not to go to the counselor’s home or too young to understand? More than once is certainly an indication of not making wise choices and then STAYING quiet because of a threat of suicide?? Weird.
There are always excuses for female sexual predators, we must understand them, she “loved” the young person, you see...
Its all BS.
In a school near where I used to live there was a teacher who would pick out a boy, groom him for a year and then proceed to rape him repeatedly for about 18 month. The boy was told that, no one would believe him, his family would be harmed if he told and that it was his own fault for being so "pretty".
When one of his victims finally broke and the whole sordid mess began to come to light the teachers union stood solidly behind the rapist saying that all the boys were obviously gay and the teacher was just helping them explore their sexuality. Oh, and the kids house was mysteriously set on fire. For apparently no reason.
Oh and that teacher was "teacher of the year" multiple times as well.
Of course it is.
Any adult that touches a minor in their care should be given a fair trial and shot in the morning.
No touchee the kiddies.
Don’t worry Cass, you’ll fall in love in prison too.
What parent lets their kid spend the night at school staff’s home?
Probably wishes to..............
Alcoholic lesbian = school counselor.
There are no words.
(I was in HS in the 80s... although even in my suburban teaching days in the 90s, every school had at least one teacher-student pairing that everyone knew about. In the 2000's, the large urban HS had basically a river of black male students visiting the counselors offices, and the two attractive young female nurses often looking disheveled in the afternoons.)
Poudre school district in Ft Collins CO!!! I went to middle school there!!
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