KESQ.com News Services

FRENCH VALLEY - A 36-year-old male Temecula Valley High School teacher accused of having sex with one of his 16-year-old female students was free Friday on $25,000 bail.

Jeremy Todd Buchholz, a married father of two and a former football coach who switched to mathematics instruction at the high school, is charged with unlawful intercourse with a minor, sexual penetration with a foreign object and oral copulation with a child under 18 years old, all felonies.

School officials were told in September that Buchholz and the teen were in a relationship, said Temecula police Detective Darin Gray.

"The school got a report and then they contacted me," Gray said.

Buchholz, who joined the Temecula Valley school district in 2000, was placed on paid leave when the investigation began, Sept. 18, said district spokeswoman Melanie Norton.

"Since being charged on Jan. 9 ... he has been placed on unpaid leave," she added.

The investigation determined that the teacher and the student, who is now 17, had allegedly been involved for about six months, dating back to last spring, Gray said.

"At one point she was his direct student," Gray said.

The girl told authorities that Buchholz touched her sexually while in his vehicle on the way from school to her house. She also said he touched her in the classroom and that she gave him oral sex in his vehicle after school and in the classroom before school hours.

"She stated during summer break she had intercourse with Buchholz on two different occasions at his residence," Gray said in an investigative report.

The detective said two friends of the teen told him they were aware of the relationship and that the girl had talked to them about having sex with her teacher, Gray said.

Buchholz was charged by the District Attorney's Office last Friday, but not arrested until yesterday because police did not find out about the charges until they looked it up on the Internet, Gray said.

Buchholz was picked up at his French Valley home about 5 p.m. Thursday and booked into the Southwest Detention Center. He later posted bail.