UPDATED October 2 with comments from the Collin County District Attorney.
A Plano private school teacher was sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to sex crimes against a 15-year-old female student.
Jacob Thomas Allred, now 34, was arrested in January 2024 and charged with child grooming, a third-degree felony.
Allred taught ninth grade at Great Lakes Academy in Plano, which specializes in students with social disorders and learning disabilities.
In October 2024, Allred was also charged with two counts of sexual performance by a child and one count of improper relationship between educator and student. Both crimes are second-degree felonies punishable by 2 to 20 years in prison.
The crimes occurred in 2023, starting with inappropriate comments and sexually explicit messages that escalated to physical conduct.
The victim reported to Plano police that Allred told her he had sexual feelings for her in October 2023, then began sending her explicit messages using the Discord app. She showed police screen shots of the messages, and investigators found communications in Allred’s phone that confirmed the victim’s story.
Allred waived a jury trial and entered an open plea of guilty to the second-degree felony charges on September 17, leaving the sentence to District Judge Angela Tucker.
Tucker sentenced Allred to the maximum of 20 years in a Texas Department of Criminal Justice facility on each charge. Allred will also be required to register as a sex offender for life.
“Prosecutors showed that Allred had previously been disciplined by the school for being alone with a female student in a classroom—a violation of school policy that foreshadowed his later crimes,” according to a statement issued by Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis.
“Teachers hold a position of special trust,” said Willis. “When that trust is betrayed in such an appalling way—a male teacher preying on a 15-year-old girl—the law must respond firmly. This maximum sentence protects children and delivers the justice these victims deserve.”
State records show Allred was certified as an educational aide from 2012 to 2018, then as a teacher starting in 2019.
He permanently surrendered his teaching certificate in May 2024 and was added to the Do Not Hire Registry of people ineligible to be employed by a Texas public school.
Allred is among hundreds of Texas educators accused of sex crimes involving students and other children in just the past few years.
Thousands of educator sexual misconduct complaints have been reported to the Texas Education Agency.
