Thirty-six-year-old Aimee L Sword of Waterford Township apologised at her sentencing Monday in Oakland County Circuit Court. She had pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree criminal sexual conduct in a deal with prosecutors. The police say Sword used Facebook in 2008 to find her son, who’s now 16. She gave him up for adoption as an infant. “I don’t understand it,” Sword said, referring to her behaviour.

Sword’s son, who has a different last name, was 16 when he testified at the preliminary exam in January that Sword contacted him in May 2008 while he was living in an adoptive home in Grand Rapids. He said they met at a Grand Rapids hotel and had sex, and then later had sex in Waterford Township. Waterford Township is 30 miles northwest of Detroit.

Defense attorney Mitchell Ribitwer said Tuesday in Oakland Circuit Judge Dan O’Brien’s courtroom that Sword fully accepts responsibility for her actions. Assistant Prosecutor Nicki Weisberger called what Sword did a “selfish, cowardly, despicable act”.