Former Nebraska coach accused of grooming student takes plea deal

DAVID CITY, Neb. (KOLN) — The former David City coach accused of grooming one of his students has accepted a plea deal.

Jeremy Andel, 37, was charged with one count of child enticement and one count of third-degree sexual abuse by a school employee in Butler County.

On Tuesday, Andel pled no contest to attempted child enticement. He was found guilty. In exchange for the plea, prosecutors reduced an enticement charge and dropped the sexual abuse charge.

On May 14, 2024, a 16-year-old girl told officers in David City that her family friend and wrestling coach, Andel, had been sending her a slew of inappropriate text messages in the months prior, according to an arrest affidavit.

The texts had been coming in since September of 2023, back when the girl was 15 years old. Officers later learned that more than 1,700 texts were exchanged between the coach and the teen.

The teen told police that the text messages made her feel uncomfortable, but she struggled to report them because she worried it could cause problems between Andel and her family.

Over the course of the year, police gathered more and more of the text messages and discovered a pattern of apparently grooming behavior on Andel’s behalf, court records show. The affidavit quotes multiple inappropriate conversations between the teen and her coach.

Andel’s sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 9. He faces one to 50 years in prison.

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