AUSTIN, Texas — A former Hays County GOP leader has been sentenced to 410 years in prison after being convicted of 65 sexual abuse and child pornography charges.
A Hays County judge sentenced 44-year-old Bo Dresner on Monday morning. Judge Gary Steel sentenced Dresner with multiple consecutive, or stacked, sentences.
Dresner was a precinct chair and former sergeant-at-arms for the Hays County Republican Party.
The investigation began in 2019 following the outcry from a child who said that Dresner was sexually molesting her. While the investigation was ongoing, a Hays County sheriff's deputy stopped Dresner while he was on his way to the airport. He had a one-way ticket to Armenia – a country that does not have an extradition agreement with the U.S.
Dresner was booked in the Hays County Jail in April of 2019.
Authorities later learned that another child was also molested. It was discovered that Dresner had hundreds of thousands of images of child pornography on his electronic devices.
Judge Steel sentenced Dresner to four stacked sentences of 75 years, each on four counts of continuous sexual abuse of a child, then added stacked sentences ranging from 10 to 20 years on the remaining 61 counts of possession of child pornography with intent to promote.
A jury trial began last week, but during the first day of testimony, Dresner decided to change his plea to guilty on all 65 counts.
The evidence presented at the trial and during the punishment hearing included testimony from one of Dresner’s biological daughters as well as another child who lived at Dresner’s home at the time.
This was not the first time Dresner had been accused of sexual abuse of a child. In 2005, he pled guilty to assaulting a 15-year-old in Minnesota, but that sentence was reduced. Evidence also showed that one of the victims in the current case made allegations about Dresner in 2012. CPS was involved, but the matter was not fully investigated by law enforcement and the victim was sent back to live with Dresner.
Hays County District Attorney Kelly Higgins applauded the work of the assistant district attorneys who worked on this case.