The now-former Sheridan High School assistant principal convicted in December for having sex with one of his students was sentenced Thursday to between three and five years in prison.
Jacob Meyer, 34, was charged last May, then convicted in December after a two-day jury trial in Sheridan County District Court.
The charge was a variation of second-degree sexual assault that forbids a school employee or volunteer who is more than four years older than a student from having sex with that student. It applies even when the student is 18, as she was in Meyer’s case.
And it’s punishable by between two and 20 years in prison.
Meyer’s defense attorney Jeremy Kisling argued at a Thursday sentencing hearing for a two-to five-year sentence suspended in favor of a term of probation.
Sheridan County Attorney Dianna Bennett argued for a three-to five-year prison term.
District Court Judge Benjamin Kirven adopted Bennett’s recommendation.
Meyer will receive credit for the brief stint he served in jail after his arrest last May, and after he was taken into custody following his December conviction.
Texts Surfaced
The student in question was an 18-year-old at Sheridan High School as of May 4, and was about 15 years younger than Meyer, an evidentiary affidavit says.
The investigation started that day, when Sheridan High School Principal Scott Cleland relayed to the Sheridan Police Department a report that a student had a sexual relationship with Meyer, says the affidavit.
Cleland provided Sheridan Police Department Officer Meagan Phillips with text message conversations between the student and Meyer that appeared to be from April 19, the document says.
The quotes from those texts as written in the affidavit appear sexual in nature.
The young woman gave a police interview May 5, and consent to search her phone, says the affidavit.
She said they’d been exchanging messages since about November of 2023, and they talked often about having sex.
On about April 19 Meyer asked her to come to his home; she acknowledged she was drunk, the document says.
The woman said her friend agreed to drive her there, and she described having sex with him.
Later, she put her clothes back on and her friend picked her up; the woman told her friend she and Meyer had had sex, the affidavit says.
When Phillips interviewed the woman’s friend at the police department, the friend said she was aware of the relationship.
Meyer was the assistant principal at the school at the time of the sex act, the document adds.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
