A Blue Earth County circuit judge has ordered an evidentiary hearing for Jayme Scott Ralph Strand, a former Woodbury Math & Science Academy coach and physical education teacher accused of soliciting underage sex online.
Judge Krista Jass ordered the new hearing at Strand’s pretrial Omnibus Hearing Monday, but she had not set a date and time as of Wednesday afternoon.
The order followed a discussion in court Monday involving recent defense motions that will be contested by the prosecution.
On Sept. 24, for example, Strand’s attorney, Zachary Stevan Webster, filed a motion to suppress evidence of a January email message and other documents that were found based on a Sept. 9 search warrant.
Webster said the email’s date was outside the search warrant’s time range, which was specifically limited to activities between July 14 and Aug. 25.
Another Sept. 24 defense motion challenges the search warrant’s probable cause weight because “information used to acquire the search warrant was from an illegal search of the defendant’s phone.”
Other related specifics were not included in those motions.
According to the criminal complaint against him, however, Strand allegedly admitted making previous sexually charged connections with two females under the age of 16.
The criminal complaint also says that when arrested in a police sting and read his Miranda rights on Aug 24, Strand agreed to speak to arresting officers without an attorney present.
During the jailhouse conversation that followed, Strand allegedly admitted that he had driven to Mankato from his home in River Falls expecting to meet and have sex with a female he thought was a 15-year-old girl he’d met on the mobile chat-room app Kik.
The girl turned out to be a male undercover detective who chatted with Strand on Kik between Aug. 14 and Aug. 24.
In a Sept. 23 notification with the court, meanwhile, Webster informed the court that Strand has since changed his mailing address from River Falls to Rochester.
Strand was dismissed by Math & Science Academy shortly after Mankato police informed the school of his arrest.
Said Academy Executive Director, Kate Hinton on Sept. 2: “There were absolutely no signs whatsoever. None. That’s what’s so concerning. … There were no complaints or concerns. No one in our community has come forward since the arrest. He had no disciplinary record.”
Strand had worked at Woodbury Math & Science Academy since 2018.
He is expected to enter a plea to the felony charges against him before Omnibus Hearing proceedings have concluded.
If a defendant’s plea is other than guilty, the Omnibus Hearing judge must set a trial date within 60 days, barring persuasive “good cause” for delay.
Judge Jass also presided over Strand’s Aug. 26 initial court appearance, where she released him from the Blue Earth County Jail on conditional $100,000 bond.
