GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — A plea deal calls for probation for a former Front Range high school teacher and football coach caught up in an online sex sting last year.

Andrew Charles Weaver, 29, of Broomfield, was sentenced Thursday in Mesa County to three years of intensive supervised sex offender probation after pleading guilty to a lone felony count of attempted Internet sexual exploitation of a child.

District Judge Brian Flynn agreed to a defense request to modify Weaver’s probation terms to allow him contact with his minor son. The judge also allowed Weaver to return to the Front Range before his probation is formally transferred to authorities in Adams County.

Flynn, in handing down the sentence, said he was “concerned” Weaver had claimed in a pre-sentence report to have no memory of the online chats which led to his arrest.

“You had an exemplary life by all accounts, a young son, a wife,” Flynn said. “This is an aberration for you.”

Weaver, who resigned as a teacher and football coach at Brighton High School days after his arrest in April, approached online an investigator posing as an 14-year-old girl in a Yahoo chat room, according to an arrest affidavit.

The alleged criminal chats happened March 8, 2007, and lasted 45 minutes.

Weaver allegedly exposed his genitals after a series of sexually explicit messages including a request to see a picture of the 14-year-old’s “boobs,” the affidavit said.

The affidavit suggests the teacher made no effort to hide his true identity.

“The person using the Yahoo user name of eightball_79 identified himself as a 27-year-old male named Andy of Denver,” the affidavit said.

Weaver on Thursday was accompanied by his wife, who sat directly behind the defense table.

After handing in his resignation in April to Brighton school officials, Weaver was hired as a steel worker in Brighton, according to prosecutors.

Weaver said nothing when asked by the judge if he wanted to say anything before hearing his sentence.

Reach Paul Shockley at pshockley@gjfreepress.com