An attorney representing a former Petal teacher charged with having sex with a teenage student says police coerced his client to confess.

Attorney John M. Colette of Jackson has filed a motion to have Loni Marie Folks’ confession tossed out and the charge dismissed.

Folks, a former fifth-grade teacher at W.L. Smith Elementary, was arrested in January and charged with sexual battery of a 16-year-old foreign exchange student. She is scheduled to be tried Nov. 19 in Forrest County Circuit Court. If convicted, she faces up to 30 years in prison.

Colette claims Petal Detective Gavin Guy and two other unidentified officers threatened to keep Folks detained if she did not confess.