Texas Choir Teacher Gets 60 Days in Jail for Sexually Abusing 13-Year-Old Student
The abuse started when the victim was 12 years old and lasted for three years.
(Photo: LIGHTFIELD STUDIOS, Adobe Stock)
TOMBALL, Texas — A former choir teacher at Tomball Intermediate School was sentenced Tuesday to 60 days in jail for engaging in a sexual relationship with a student.
Marka Bodine, 32, was arrested and charged with continuous sexual abuse of a child in April 2021, reports ABC13. She pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual abuse of a child under 14 and admitted to having a relationship with the student for three years, starting when he was just 12 years old.
Court documents show the student was a sixth-grader in Bodine’s class. The student said Bodine befriended him by playing Fortnite and then started texting him. They first engaged in sexual intercourse starting in April 2018, shortly after the student turned 13. He told police they had sex in her classroom and in her car several times.
Bodine moved into the apartment complex where the student lived after her divorce. When the student moved away in July 2018, Bodine drove to his home two to four times a month until March 2021. She admitted to sending the boy 25 to 40 explicit photos and videos of herself between April 2020 and February 2021.
The victim reported allegations to both the school and Tomball police in April 2021. Prior to the allegations, Bodine told her principal that the student was harassing her and making threats of self-harm. She also claimed he accessed private photos of her that he then manipulated, People reports.
In addition to two months in jail, Judge Greg Glass sentenced Bodine to 10 years of probation. She has to register as a sex offender and undergo therapy. Court records show Glass also gave Bodine an extra year delay before she must report to the Harris County Jail to serve her sentence because she recently gave birth, according to KXXV. The victim is not the child’s father.
Harris County Assistant District Attorney Janna Oswald, who is chief of the Crimes Against Children Division, had requested Bodine receive 20 to 40 years in prison “given the seriousness of her crime and the lasting effects of the crime and the impact on the child’s life.”
“There are certain types of cases that, in my opinion, really should only warrant punishment, and that is this kind of case,” Oswald continued. “I’m heartbroken for the complainant and his family. I’m really disappointed in the outcome as a prosecutor — a child abuse prosecutor, and I’m disappointed as a citizen of Harris County.”
Christopher Downey, a criminal defense attorney, told ABC13 the decision likely came down to the testimony of the defendant and her gender.
“I think no small part of an explanation for this sentence may lie in any psych info they provided to the court,” he said. “By all accounts, this is an unusual outcome. I am sure that the gender of the person on trial, the fact that this was a woman accused of having sex with a young boy, that’s gonna factor into it as well.”
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About the Author
Amy Rock, Executive Editor
Amy is Campus Safety’s Executive Editor. Prior to joining the editorial team in 2017, she worked in both events and digital marketing.
Amy has many close relatives and friends who are teachers, motivating her to learn and share as much as she can about campus security. She has a minor in education and has worked with children in several capacities, further deepening her passion for keeping students safe.
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A man would have been given a far worse punishment, no less than 60 months or 5 years. This is the double standard to the criminal courts and punishment in American culture. Women want equal rights? Give them equal punishment!
If a Marka gets 2 months for mentally and/or physically molesting a child for a 2 year period, how much time would a Mark get? Do the sentencing guidelines for heinous acts differ based on the gender of the abuser or is it the victim’s gender that is considered? Why does the justice system treat men, and now apparently 12 year old boys, as secondhand people? Maybe the pay gap is actually a surcharge because of an unequal dispensing of justice in sexual abuse cases; or do men get $1 more on average because they become expendable in any desperate situation? This story illustrates how “the Marka’s” of our society will never truly appreciate their crime because the justice system denies them the experience of fair and equal punishment. As for the victim, there is now an increased risk that he will develop antisocial sexual behaviors where he would likely find himself in a much more desperate legal situation than his former abuser, Marka. This is just one example for the importance of blind justice.
Honestly the only answer for men or women doing this is the death penalty. We need to make it very clear that this behavior is not acceptable or will it ever. Women get a slap on the hand and men get years in jail. If people would be put to death for this and it made public i guarantee things would change. Until we actually do something about it nothing will change
I concur with the comments left. There does appear to be a double-standard with regards to application of justice for cases such as this. While we in the male community sometimes glorify sexual encounters with older attractive women as part of some coming of age, at the end of the day, this is molestation of a minor by an adult. This boy was 12 years old, when this started. 12!!! This adult offender should be doing hard time regardless of their gender.