According to ABC13, former Texas sixth grade English teacher, 32-year-old Marka Bodine, will spend two months in prison as a result of holding a three-year relationship, with one of her students, who at the time was between age of 12 and 15. Harris County Judge George Glass sentenced Bodine to 60 days in prison and 10 years of probation following her guilty plea on the charge of continuous sexual abuse of a child.
Her sentence was postponed, due to the recent birth of her child. Bodine will be given until June, 5, 2023 to surrender for her brief prison sentence. According the New York Post, the underage victim was not the child’s father.
The Harris County District Attorney’s Office, which requested a minimum sentence of 20 years in prison, was surprised by the minimal sentence, according to a Facebook post by District Attorney Kim Ogg’s. Harris County Prosecutor Janna Oswald, chief of the Crimes Against Children Division shared with NBC2 -
“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,”
- Harris County Prosecutor Janna Oswald
In April of 2021, when Bodine reported to the school principal, that a former student, who was 16 at the time, was harassing her and threatening to harm himself, the case came to light. Reportedly, the student claimed the relationship with Bodine, lasted almost three years, beginning in 2018 when the male victim was a 6th-grade student of Bodine’s.
According to the investigation, the two began chatting through the video game Fortnite, and then went on to send text messages. When the student turned 13, the relationship became sexual. Bodine reportedly had sex with the student in her classroom and in her vehicle. Further, over the course of three years, Bodine was said to have sent roughly 40 explicit images of herself to the teen.
During the same time frame, Bodine supposedly went through a divorce, moving into the same apartment complex of her teen victim. Whatever her life circumstances, that would allow someone to abuse a child in this way, must be very convoluted. The public can only hope that her 10 years of probation, includes mandatory counseling. This is one very selfish, and very emotionally sick individual. Bodine is also obviously not very bright, as she not only brought this upon herself (and her victim), but was caught in her deeds, by complaining about her very victim.
Community outrage has been loud regarding Judge Glass, who gave her a shockingly short sentence, even despite the 10 years-probation. That her actions have affected all associated with her, in the most reprehensible way – is to be polite. She should have literally been sentenced with more equity, for the crime against her victim and his family, rather than with so much leniency. A significant measure of injustice, it would seem, at face value, has prevailed.
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
-Martin Luther King Jr.