Tom GantertBeulah, ND – A 24-year-old teacher has been arrested and accused of sending nude photos of herself to a 17-year-old student.
Kelsie Schmidt was charged Tuesday with a felony of luring minors by computer or other means, according to the Bismarck Tribune.
A police report said that a Mercer County Sheriff’s Department detective went to Beulah High School on Friday to investigate whether a teacher had been sending nude photos to male high school students via Snapchat, the Bismarck Tribune reported.
The police detective interviewed a 17-year-old male student who said that “he could get the math teacher in trouble for pictures that she had sent him,” a police affidavit stated.
The student said that he had received three or four naked photos on Snapchat from Schmidt in August and September.
The student said the photos were of the teacher from the waist up and her hair partially covering her breasts, according to the Bismarck Tribune.
Another photo was of a person’s legs that had the message, “Get a group and play naked hide and seek.”
Schmidt admitted to the police detective that she had sent the photos of herself nude to the student, according to the Bismarck Tribune.
Schmidt was placed on administrative leave as the school district conducts its own investigation, according to Beulah Public School District Superintendent Travis Jordan.
Schmidt is in her first year of teaching at the high school, according to Jordan. The superintendent would not say how many students were involved in the investigation.
“This is a very unfortunate situation for everyone, but certainly it’s a very serious allegation and we are treating it very seriously,” said Tom Dickson, the attorney for Schmidt, according to the Bismarck Tribune.
Schmidt’s bond was set at 10 percent of $10,000 according to court records.