Editor’s note: The original version of this article contained an error. It has since been corrected. We regret the error and are happy to set the record straight.

NATCHEZ — The lawyer for a former schoolteacher accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a teenage female student requested Wednesday to waive a preliminary hearing.

Stephanie L. Adams, 39, who formerly taught at Adams County Christian School, was charged late last month with touching a child for lustful purposes.

An investigation began when the 17-year-old student’s parents allegedly read an exchange of text messages between their child and Adams, police said at the time.

Adams was fired from ACCS in May after school leaders found out about the incident.

Natchez attorney Tim Cotton said Wednesday he filed a waiver with Municipal Court Judge Jim Blough to waive a preliminary hearing in hopes of speeding up the case.

“There are a lot of hurt people involved on both sides of the fence,” Cotton said. “The typical strategy in a case like this is for the defense to try to slow things down while the state tries to speed things up, but I don’t think in this case anyone will benefit from slowing it down.”

Cotton, who declined to discuss specifics of the case or any legal strategy, said his hope was to push the case along directly to a grand jury and let them make a determination on the case.

Cotton didn’t know when a grand jury would hear the case.

Natchez attorney and city prosecutor William McGehee said he had been assigned the case, but had not been delivered the case files as of Wednesday.

McGehee said he was aware Cotton filed the preliminary hearing, which would take the case out of city court to the grand jury and under the purview of District Attorney Ronnie Harper’s office.

Harper said Wednesday he wouldn’t receive any information on the case until it was bound over to his office.

Natchez Police Department Detective Jerry Ford said detectives were beginning to prepare all the case findings to present to the grand jury.

Adams has been removed from the faculty listing on ACCS’ website, but at one time was listed as a first-grade teacher who received her bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Alcorn State University.