Dresner receives 410 years for CSA, pornography

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SAN MARCOS  —Bo Dresner, 44, was sentenced to 410 years in prison after a jury trial commenced on March 4 in front of 274th Judicial District Judge Gary Steel.

Dresner, according to court documents, was arrested on April 3, 2019, for aggravated sexual abuse of a child. After obtaining a search warrant, officers found large hard drives, which had been manually removed from a computer, containing thousands of photos depicting underage girls in “thong underwear and bra type tops.” He was then charged for the offense of possession of child pornography. Though, these instances were not the defendant’s first.

In his mid-20s, Dresner met the mother of his first child in Minnesota, who became “pregnant with [his first daughter] due to rape by Dresner” at the age of 15, according to court documents. These allegations led to Dresner’s guilty plea in 2005, but the sentence was reduced, according to a news release.

“It was then stated in Minnesota history that [the state] reached out to the Texas Police Department to have Bo Dresner charged and nothing was done in Texas,” read court documents. It also stated that Texas closed the case because it believed it was a custody battle case, which he won and subsequently had his daughter moved to Texas with him.

In 2012, a child notified law enforcement that inappropriate activities were occurring when her stepmother left for work. According to court documents, the woman was allegedly not protective due to the thought that the child was coached to say these things due to the previous custody battle.

Law enforcement began investigating the defendant after the child, who was approximately 14 years old, told a family member that Dresner was “doing it again,” which, because of past reports, assumingly meant sexual assault. A forensic interview was conducted on March 28, 2019, where the child noted that she had talked to police multiple times and nothing had resulted, but that “when she and her father were alone, bad stuff would happen.”

The second victim, who was approximately 8 years old, told police that her “dad was a good dad and he keeps her safe,” without the prompt of a question, which officers took as coaching.

Officers obtained an arrest warrant and arrested Dresner on April 3, 2019, after they observed him heading for the airport, with a one-way flight to Armenia — which is a non-extradition country. Dresner had packed the citation from his Child Protective Services case, three bottles of sexual lubricant, a box of condoms, a laptop, mesh underwear, his birth certificate, immunization history and more. The lubricant and lingerie were later presented in a motion in limine, which is to prevent the jury from being exposed to potentially prejudicial information.

The court brought forth a superseding indictment in May 2020, adding two counts of continuous sexual abuse of a child, one stemming from May 1, 2011, to March 28, 2019, and the other, from May 2, 2014, to April 1, 2019.

Originally, the defendant’s case was held in front of 453rd Judicial District Judge Sherri Tibbe, but there was a motion to recuse her after she refused to accept a plea deal.

According to court documents, on May 4, 2023, the two sides reached an agreement, which would allow Dresner to plead guilty to two counts of continuous sexual abuse of a child and dismiss all other charges, including the more than 50 counts of possession with intent to promote child pornography in exchange for 30 years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, with no opportunity for parole. Court documents state that the plea deal was agreed upon due to the testimony of the victims being traumatizing, but “Judge Tibbe indicated her preliminary unwillingness to accept the plea. The rationale for rejecting the plea that she provided was: A) She reviewed the materials from a trial, which was held with regard to Mr. Dresner for the termination of parental rights and educated herself about that case to learn more about the criminal case (it should be noted that the trial was not held before Judge Tibbe) [and] B) She really does not like these cases and would not accept a plea on a case like this that would enable the defendant to see the light of day again.”

Afterwards, it was moved to Judge Steel’s court.

The trial commenced on March 4, 2024, and was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorneys Catherine Schneider and Katie Arnold. During the first day of testimony, Dresner changed his plea to “guilty” for all 65 counts on the indictment after which, the jury was excused.

In a punishment hearing, Judge Steel sentenced Dresner to four consecutive sentences of 75 years each on four counts of continuous sexual abuse of a child. Then, the judge added stacked sentences ranging from 10 to 20 years on the remaining 61 counts of possession of child pornography with intent to promote, for a total of 410 years in prison.

Following the sentencing, Schneider and Arnold expressed their satisfaction with the verdict and their appreciation for the witnesses, investigators and those who worked to successfully prosecute the case.