CROWN POINT | A former teacher's aide and assistant girl's track coach at Edison High School in Lake Station was sentenced Friday to a year of probation for having a relationship with a 15-year-old female student.

Twenty-two-year-old Jose Elizondo II pleaded guilty to sexual misconduct with a minor, according to Lake Criminal Court records.

Lake Criminal Court Judge Diane Boswell entered Elizondo's conviction as a misdemeanor so it wouldn't affect his student loans. She told him she reserved the right to bump it back to a felony conviction if he violates probation.

Elizondo initially was charged with two counts of felony sexual misconduct with a minor but agreed to plead guilty to one count under a plea with Lake County prosecutors.

The victim's mother called Lake Station police in 2007, reporting that her daughter sneaked out of her Lake Station home several times to meet Elizondo, court records state. The girl told her mother she had sex with Elizondo at least twice, police allege.

Defense attorney Ed Fontanez said that although it looks like a case of a young teacher involved with a student on the surface, Elizondo met the girl through his sister, and the two were having a relationship before he started work at the high school.

"She was never in a class he taught, and they never crossed paths in the halls," Fontanez said.