News File Photo Heather Winfield, right, appears with her attorneys in Alpena’s 26th Circuit Court in this January 2019 News file photo.

ALPENA — After two years of delays, the sex assault trial of former Alpena Public Schools teacher Heather Winfield should start on Tuesday, barring a last-minute postponement.

Accused of sexually assaulting a student she taught while a special education teacher at Thunder Bay Junior High School, Winfield claims the student lied when he testified Winfield had sex with him hundreds of times between July 2016 and June 2018, when the student was 11 to 13 years old. Winfield faces up to life in prison.

This week’s trial — expected to last at least two weeks and include as many as 60 witnesses and voluminous documents, photographs, and other evidence — represents the culmination of five years of police investigation and two years of bumped trial dates.

Police first launched an investigation of Winfield in fall of 2016, after another student reported allegedly inappropriate social media texts between Winfield and the boy, according to court documents.

The News does not identify alleged survivors of sexual assault.

After a brief school inquiry into the allegations, Winfield resigned. At the time, the boy denied any sexual interaction with Winfield, who regularly included the boy in family activities and allowed him to stay at her house. Winfield claims she befriended the boy out of concern for his welfare because of his troubled past and difficult family situation.

In summer 2018, the boy told police Winfield had assaulted him numerous times over the previous two years.

Police, who had stopped their initial investigation more than a year earlier, revived the inquiry and, in January 2019, arrested Winfield on multiple charges of sexually assaulting a child. In March of that year, 88th District Court Judge Thomas LaCross ruled after a preliminary examination that prosecutors had enough evidence for the case to proceed to trial in circuit court.

But that trial hasn’t yet happened.

A judge postponed Winfield’s original trial, scheduled in September 2019, because evidence requested by Winfield’s attorneys and considered by them crucial to their defense had not yet arrived.

Over the next two years, the court adjourned six subsequent trial dates, some because of restrictions related to COVID-19. Late-arriving evidence — the same evidence for which the original trial was postponed — again stalled the trial in October, days before the trial was to begin.

Now, Winfield’s trial should begin Tuesday, with jury selection at Alpena’s APlex, a venue deemed large enough to safely hold the more than 100 potential jurors expected to report for jury duty.

The prosecution’s potential witness list includes police officers, school officials, local business representatives, a sexual assault medical examinier, and an FBI agent expected to offer an opinion about the behavior of sexually abused children.

The defense may call as witnesses, among others, a state police DNA analyst, a juvenile probation officer, and a doctor expected to testify about the identity of a person shown in a nude photograph provided by the boy.

The prosecution plans to provide up to 40 pieces of physical evidence, including diagrams of hotel rooms, audio and video recordings of police interviews, photos of Winfield’s home, and data collected from cell phones.

Potential defense exhibits include couch cushions from Winfield’s home, DNA lab analysis reports, and a copy of a text message allegedly showing the boy recanting his accusations.

Winfield remains free on bond.