Anna Good
A former Texas teacher has been sentenced to 60 days in prison after she admitted to sexually abusing one of her former middle school students, but her sentence has been delayed because she recently gave birth.
According to ABC13 Houston’s report on Wednesday, August 3, ex-teacher Marka Bodine was given the light sentence by Harris County Judge George Glass. The former Tomball ISD teacher has also been given 10 years of probation after Bodine admitted to sexually abusing the child over the course of three years. She is also required to register as a sex offender and will be undergoing therapy.
The former teacher was arrested and charged with continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14 in April of 2021. This was shortly after she informed her principal that an old student had begun threatening and harassing her, as well as making threats of self-harm.
The victim had been in Bodine’s sixth-grade class when they first met, and according to him, Bodine played Fornite with him before they began exchanging text messages, many of which the teacher admitted to being explicit in nature. She began sexually assaulting him in April of 2018, which is around when her student turned 13 years old.
After she moved into the victim’s apartment complex, she could regularly drive to his home to visit him between July 2018 and March 2021. Bodine admitted in court that she sent somewhere between 25 to 40 explicit photographs to her minor student between April 2020 and February 2021.
According to People, Bodine has yet to be put into a Texas prison because she recently gave birth, but Judge Glass has given her until June 5, 2023 to report to jail to serve her time. It is important to note that the CSEM victim is not the father of Bodine’s child, although the father’s identity has remained anonymous.
Originally, the district attorney’s office demanded a 20- to 40-year prison sentence for the former teacher, given the nature of her abuse of a minor, compared to the slap on the wrist of 60 days that she was given.