DAVID CITY, Neb. (KOLN) — A David City coach has been charged with child enticement after a 16-year-old girl spoke up about hundreds of inappropriate texts she received.

On Monday, prosecutors charged 37-year-old Jeremy Andel with one count of child enticement and one count of third-degree sexual abuse by a school employee. It’s unclear if Andel is in custody after an arrest warrant was signed on Tuesday.

A family contacted police in David City on May 14, 2024. A 16-year-old girl told officers 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 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 would tell the girl, “you better be deleting these,” and “I should be in jail for this,” after some conversations, the affidavit shows. At least two conversations show the coach encouraging the teen not to speak to him while he’s drinking. In one, the coach told her she should avoid him while he’s drinking, saying, “We all know what happens,” according to court records.

Police said several other texts discuss Andel’s wishes to be younger and his excitement for when the girl would eventually turn 18.

Our partners at 10/11 News reached out to the superintendent for David City Public Schools for comment on the situation but did not receive an immediate reply. The school’s staffing record does not list Andel as an employee, however.