A former Owensville High School teacher and coach was charged Friday with patronizing prostitution and attempted sexual contact with a student in a St. Louis County school where he’s taught since 2015.

Timothy Mitchell Nagel, 35, had an arraignment on Monday in St. Louis County. The arraignment was continued until Monday, Oct. 22, to allow Nagel to obtain legal representation, according to Kelly Ann Snyder, assistant prosecuting attorney for St. Louis County.

Nagel was charged and arrested Friday on two misdemeanor counts alleging inappropriate communication with a student under the age of 18. His bond was set at $15,000 and he was ordered to have no contact with the victim.

According to the probable cause statement filed by Sean Mayer with the Florissant Police Department, Nagel is alleged to have “requested a student who was less than 18 years old to perform oral sex on him in exchange for money or credit for a school tutoring program.”

The allegations resulting in the two class A misdemeanor charges reportedly occurred this summer between June 1 and June 30 while Nagel was a teacher in the Florissant-Ferguson School District.

Fox 2 news out of St. Louis identified Nagel as a teacher and softball coach at McCluer North High School. 

Nagel taught social students at OHS and was the head baseball and softball coach along with working as an assistant wrestling coach.

He had taught at OHS since August of 2008. 

Citing information from prosecutor’s office, the television station also reported the communication between Nagel and his alleged victim began as far back as April 2018.

Nagel left Owensville after the 2015 school year — and his brief marriage — ended.

In a five-week time span in 2015, Nagel’s wife divorced him and was granted her request to change her name back to her maiden name. The divorce was uncontested and both parties represented themselves.

She was a teacher in the R-2 School District and moved out of state following the divorce.

Nagel was granted a release from his teaching contract in June of 2015. In his letter of resignation submitted to the Gasconade County R-2 School District’ s Board of Education, Nagel wrote, “A new opportunity has arisen that I want to take for personal and professional reasons.”

He thanked district officials for the opportunity to work here for seven years, writing, “It has been fun to watch the students grow and the athletic programs grow and improve over the years that I have been a part of them.”

Superintendent Dr. Chuck Garner said on Monday he could not comment in specific details about Nagel’s reasons for leaving the district other than the district did accept his resignation in June 2015.

Garner said he could not address specifics about an employee’s records.

He did, however, assure the public that if a student made a complaint it would be investigated by the school district.

“If any student reports staff on inappropriate behavior, we’re going to investigate,” said Garner. “I just can’t talk about someone’s personnel file. They’re human resources files. That’s the legal answer.”

Garner did confirm McCluer North and Florissant-Ferguson district officials had contacted him within the past week, or two, about Nagel’s employment period here.

“We investigate any report and we’ve done that and your newspaper’s reported on some of that in the past,” said Garner.

Nagel is scheduled to appear at 9 a.m. Oct. 22 before St. Louis County Associate Circuit Judge John F. Newsham for the continuation of his arraignment hearing.

Fox 2 reported Friday that school officials were informed Oct. 9 that Nagel is alleged to have had “inappropriate communications with more than one student at McCluer North High School and by the next day (Oct. 10), the staff member had been put paid administrative leave and police were called.”

“Our investigation is in relation to what is set in place here,” said Steve Michael, public information officer for the Florissant Police Department on Tuesday afternoon. “We don’t have any other information as far as an Owensville (police) investigation goes.”

Owensville police have investigation under way locally

Owensville police are conducting their own investigation into allegations against a former high school teacher and coach here who was charged in a criminal complaint last week in St. Louis County. 

Owensville Police Det. Rob Green said Tuesday “the Owensville Police Department is, at this point in time, is investigating to verify if any of these instances occurred at the Owensville school or not.”

As far as he knows, he said the Owensville department had not received any reports of incidents involving Timothy M. Nagel while he was employed with the Gasconade County R-2 School District from 2008 until he left voluntarily in June of 2015.

“Nothing that we’re aware of at this time,” said Green. “He was never asked to resign to my knowledge.”

Green said police here have received information from “grapevine-type” of allegations and will be interested in speaking to those who might have been contacted by Nagel in what they would term an inappropriate manner.

“We’re looking at these accusations at this point and we’re either trying to verify them or disprove them,” said Green. “Verify if it happened or if it didn’t.”

A key element to determining if any potential criminal behavior took place, he said, is if the contact was made with someone who was underage and still in high school or someone who had already left school.