FORT WORTH, Texas – Former Kennedale High School teacher Brittni Colleps was sentenced to five years in prison Friday for having multiple sexual encounters with five of her students.

The jury took less than three hours to sentence Colleps to five years in prison and under an hour to convict her on 16 counts of improper relationship between an educator and student. The 28-year-old mother faced up to 20 years in prison and a $10,000 fine on each of the counts.

After the verdict was read, Colleps was ordered into custody and her bond revoked. She will have to serve a quarter of the sentence before she is eligible for parole.

All of the students were 18 at the time of the sexual encounters, which occurred in the spring of 2011.

The state did not call any witnesses during the punishment phase, but Colleps’ mother, Shirley Bush, took the stand for the defense and testified that she was disappointed with her daughter, whom she described as a model child.

Colleps was a star softball player at Arlington High School and was named the Arlington Star-Telegram’s newcomer of the year in 1999.

Bush asked the jury to have “mercy” on her daughter and kids. “They need their mom,” Bush said. “It’s not their faults.”

During cross-examination, Bush acknowledged that Colleps had told her that she and her husband had been involved in group sex before. The mother said her daughter deserves a second chance to prove herself to her children.

A family friend testified that Colleps’ children have acute allergies and asthma and that Colleps is their primary caregiver. “There are three children that are going to be without a mother if she goes to jail,” the friend said.

John, one of the students Colleps had sex with, told jurors that she should only lose her teaching certificate and get minimal probation, saying she has already paid plenty for her crimes.

Colleps’ husband, Christopher Colleps, testified they’ve been married for nine years. He acknowledged that the last year has been “pretty rough.”

He had been in the military, and was stationed outside of Arlington when his wife had the sexual escapades with the students.

He said that what his wife did was “morally and ethically wrong” but that’s “between me and her and God.”