A North Texas man was arrested Tuesday after allegations were made that he sent inappropriate texts to a student while employed as a teacher at her school.
Jacob Thomas Allred, 32, of Blue Ridge, was arrested on January 30 on charges of child grooming. He was booked in Collin County jail and released on a $25,000 bond that same day.
Plano police opened an investigation into Allred earlier this month after receiving screenshots of sexually explicit texts he allegedly sent to a 15-year-old girl via the social media platform Discord. Exchanges were also allegedly found on his phone, which was seized upon his arrest.
At the time of the probe, Allred had been employed as a teacher at Great Lakes Academy in Plano for approximately four years. The alleged victim was one of his students.
While detectives say Allred was in contact with several teens on Discord, they did not disclose whether the nature of those exchanges was inappropriate, according to Fox 4 KDFW.
As for the alleged victim, she told police that Allred approached her last October in the school library, telling her he had feelings for her, Fox 4 reported. He then apparently reached out to her via Discord, sending her sexually explicit messages and making requests of her, such as telling her how to dress. The relationship allegedly became physical the following month.
Great Lakes Academy issued a statement expressing shock and disappointment upon hearing the allegations.
“We hold our employees to the highest standards and expect them to model the same behaviors built on respect, empathy, and accountability that we ask of our students. We have zero tolerance for any act that threatens or undermines this mission,” wrote Marjolein Borsten, Great Lakes Academy’s founder and executive director, according to WFAA.
Allred has since submitted his resignation and is no longer employed by the institution.
Child grooming is a third-degree felony in Texas thanks to the state legislature recently upgrading the crime from a misdemeanor. The crime occurs when an adult “knowingly persuades, induces, entices, or coerces, or attempts to persuade, induce, entice, or coerce” a minor to engage in sexual activity.
In recent years, dozens of Texas educators and other school employees have been the subject of allegations of misconduct, as covered in The Dallas Express, including the cases of a former college readiness tutor at Austin ISD, a former athletic director at Dallas ISD, and a former school resource officer at Frisco ISD.
Sex crimes in Dallas were high throughout 2023, with 756 reports of rape, fondling, sodomy, sexual assault with an object, incest, and statutory rape logged in the City’s crime analytics dashboard. The victims of these crimes were predominantly black and Hispanic women and girls.
The Dallas Police Department has struggled to reduce crime amid a significant staffing shortage. Although a City report called for a force of 4,000 officers, DPD has only around 3,000 officers. City officials also budgeted DPD just $654 million this fiscal year, with these spending levels on police operations falling well below those seen in other high-crime municipalities, such as New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
