The state has dropped sex abuse charges against Wendi Boutiette, but she’s still reeling from the events of the past nine months. Her 9-year-old son has wondered whether his mom would go to jail. She stepped down as Coquille High School’s track coach and has only sporadically found work. And she has learned that many people don’t wait for a court ruling to judge guilt or innocence.

“You find support in crazy places and lose support in places you least expect it,” she said Thursday.

Boutiette first met her accuser when he was an eighth-grader on the Coquille Middle School track team. She was his coach. Their paths crossed again when he moved to the high school and she took an assistant coaching position.

Their relationship extended beyond the track, Boutiette says. She offered him rides to Myrtle Point so he could see a girlfriend there, and she gave him jobs around her house so he could buy gifts for his flame. But that was the extent of their interactions, she said.

 The relationship took an ugly turn in February, when he accused Boutiette of having sex with him when he was 17.

Coquille police arrested Boutiette on charges of second-degree sex abuse and two counts of third-degree sex abuse. She maintained her innocence and planned to go to trial next week, but her accuser had a change of heart.

The young man had been working with prosecutors, but he recently refused to continue to cooperate.

On Thursday, the Douglas County District Attorney’s office announced it had filed a motion to dismiss the sex-abuse charges against Boutiette.

She is grateful the case is heading toward acquittal, but the ordeal has taken its toll. She has moved her two children to Coos Bay schools to avoid harassment. She has been unable to work as a coach or substitute teacher, and her father had to refinance her parents’ home to pay for her legal fees. After police hinted there was more than one alleged victim, her attorney revealed that she’d had sexual relations with two men outside her marriage.

“I tend to be a trusting person, and that has clearly backfired in my face,” she said. “It definitely feels like I have an uphill battle ahead of me.”

The sex-abuse charges stemmed from an alleged incident in 2006. The motion to dismiss charges has been submitted to Circuit Court Judge Paula Bechtold, though it has not been signed, an assistant in her office said Thursday. Bechtold has been attending a judicial conference in Salem and is expected back in her office by today, the assistant said.

Boutiette’s attorney, David Terry of Roseburg, blamed both the Coquille police and the alleged victim for damaging Boutiette’s character.

“The great bulk of the people in the community don’t believe innocent people get arrested,” he said. “The fact is, he lied in grand jury. He lied to the police.”

He said Boutiette passed two polygraph tests supporting her innocence. The first test asked if she had had sex with the alleged victim. The second asked if she had had any contact of a sexual nature with him. Terry submitted the results of the first polygraph test to state courts in May. It was conducted by Mark Ranger of Ranger Polygraph Service in Roseburg.

Boutiette suspects the young man was hanging around with his friends and wound up spinning a yarn to impress them.

“My gut instinct was he was bragging to some friends,” she said. “But taking bragging to lying is a whole new level. Much of the blame lies at his feet.”

Terry said Boutiette doesn’t plan to sue the former student, though he plans to talk with Boutiette about filing a lawsuit against the police department. Terry suggested the police failed to conduct a proper investigation.

Boutiette says she expects to move out of Coquille.

“I can’t raise my kids in a community I don’t feel safe in,” she said.