A Washington Teacher Adopted Two Teenage Boys. Prosecutors Say She Then Had Sex With Both.

Amber N. Swain, 35, was the director and a teacher at Pend Oreille River School, the Newport School District’s alternative high school in rural northeastern Washington. According to the charging documents and the Pend Oreille County Sheriff’s Office, the two teenage boys she is now accused of sexually abusing were not strangers, students, or neighbors. They were her adopted sons.

On June 2, 2026, deputies booked Swain into the Pend Oreille County Jail on charges of first-degree incest, second-degree incest, and sexual misconduct with a minor, prosecutors say. At her first court appearance the next day, a District Court judge set bail at $20,000 — less than half of what the county prosecutor had requested.

The case raises a question no school-employment background check and no adoption home study is designed to ask: how does the same person clear the vetting to teach vulnerable kids in an alternative high school andclear the vetting to adopt two teenagers — and end up charged with abusing the children placed in her care?

• 2 adopted sons — ages 17 and 18 when the alleged abuse began, according to investigators · Source: Pend Oreille County Sheriff's Office / charging documents
• $20,000 — bail set by the Pend Oreille County District Court — prosecutors had requested $50,000 citing public-safety risk · Source: The Spokesman-Review
• May 18, 2026 — date Washington's Department of Children, Youth & Families first alerted the sheriff to possible abuse of the two teens · Source: KHQ / KXLY

According to the Pend Oreille County Sheriff’s Office, detectives interviewed Swain on June 2, 2026, and found probable cause to believe the incidents occurred. She was booked into the county jail on two felony incest counts — first and second degree — and a count of sexual misconduct with a minor, prosecutors say. Court documents identify the two teenage males as Swain’s adopted children, which is what elevates the alleged conduct from misconduct to incest under Washington law.

Under Washington statute, first-degree incest is a class B felony carrying a maximum of 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine; the remaining counts are class C felonies, each carrying up to five years and a $10,000 fine. Swain has not entered a plea and is presumed innocent. Her arraignment is set for Monday, June 8, 2026.

Keep Reading

Drain the Swamp · Nonprofit Accountability

The SPLC Was Indicted for Allegedly Paying the Klan It Claimed to Fight

Read →

The investigation did not start with a complaint to the school. It started with the state. On May 18, 2026, Washington’s Department of Children, Youth & Families (DCYF) contacted the Pend Oreille County Sheriff’s Office about possible sexual abuse involving two teens, according to KHQ and KXLY. Investigators were later shown text messages between Swain and one of the boys, local outlets reported — the digital trail that turned a referral into a criminal case.

Detectives conducted forensic interviews with the alleged victims before arresting Swain on June 2. The same agency that vets and licenses Washington adoptive homes — DCYF — was the agency that flagged the abuse. That is the uncomfortable seam at the center of this story: the placement system and the protection system are the same state apparatus, and one half had to call the police on the other half’s outcome.

“While we cannot say much at this time, we can unequivocally and firmly state that we take these matters very seriously.”

Newport School District statement · June 2026

According to investigators cited by Fox News and the Spokesman-Review, one of the teens told authorities that he and Swain had sex “plenty of times,” including a few days before his interview with detectives. The other teen reported that he had touched Swain in May while the two were in bed together, but said she stopped the encounter before it escalated further. The two boys were 17 and 18 when the alleged abuse began several months earlier, prosecutors say.

When detectives first interviewed Swain, she denied having sex with the teen, telling them “I could have my timeline messed up,” according to reporting on the charging documents. She later acknowledged a relationship with one of the boys that she dated to February — a point her defense may note would have been after he turned 18. Prosecutors counter that the alleged incest charge turns on the adoptive parent-child relationship, not the age of consent.

Keep Reading

DOGE Watch · Defense Spending

Congress Approved $1.15 Trillion for a Pentagon That Can't Pass an Audit

Read →

The most disturbing fact in the record is also the simplest: the boys were Swain’s legally adopted sons. Washington adoptions — especially of older children and teenagers who often move through the foster system — require a home study, background checks, and DCYF oversight before a placement is finalized. Whatever that process found, it cleared Swain to bring two teenage boys into her home permanently.

Older-teen adoption is one of the hardest placements in the child-welfare system, and Washington, like most states, struggles to find permanent homes for kids aging out of foster care. That scarcity creates pressure to approve willing adults. None of that excuses the alleged conduct — but it is exactly the kind of placement where post-adoption monitoring is thinnest, because once an adoption is finalized, the state’s routine supervision ends. The teens here were, in effect, on their own with their adoptive parent until one of them generated the text messages that reached DCYF.

Swain was not a substitute or a peripheral staffer. She was the director and a teacher at Pend Oreille River School, the district’s alternative high school — the program that serves students who have struggled in the traditional setting, often the most vulnerable kids in the district. Washington requires teacher certification and a background check through the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, and district staff who work with minors clear fingerprint-based screening.

Newport School District Superintendent Dave Smith said Swain was “immediately placed on administrative leave and will not have contact with staff or students during this investigation.” The district added that it could not say much but takes “these matters very seriously.” The alleged victims, per the sheriff’s office, were Swain’s adopted sons; whether either attended the school where she worked has not been released.

As a condition of release, Swain is barred from contact with anyone under 18, must maintain weekly contact with her attorney, may not violate any law, and may not leave Washington state, the court ordered. Prosecutor Dolly Hunt told the court there was evidence Swain had tried to contact one of the victims from the county jail after her arrest — the basis for her request that bail be set higher than the $20,000 the judge ultimately ordered.

Swain’s arraignment is scheduled for June 8, 2026, where formal charges will be entered and she will have the opportunity to plead. She is represented by defense attorney Brett Billingsley. She has not been convicted of any crime and is presumed innocent. The deeper accountability questions — what the adoption home study found, and whether the state monitored the placement after it was finalized — will not be answered in a courtroom built to decide one defendant’s guilt.

More From Civic Intelligence

Drain the Swamp · New York City

A Federally Indicted Nonprofit Runs NYC Shelters — and Is Set to Collect $94M More

BHRAGS Home Care Corp. collected nearly $200M in NYC homeless-shelter contracts since 2022 and is…

The Crime Problem · San Francisco

San Francisco's Drug Supply Just Got 20 Times Deadlier Than Fentanyl

Isotonitazene ('ISO'), a nitazene roughly 20x more potent than fentanyl, has reached San Francisco's…