Thomas Bodnar

Bodnar's Riverside mugshot

**Thomas John Bodnar** is a child sex predator involved in the Riverside, California edition of **To Catch a Predator.** He is arguably referred to as the worst and most hated predator caught in the history of the show due to his past crimes against children.

## Biography

Bodnar’s sexual infamy began over 20 years before his appearance on Dateline. In Salem, Oregon, he sexually assaulted three siblings, ages six to nine, at numerous times in 1984: Ed and Dazarie Holcomb and a younger brother whose name is unknown. Ed took the heaviest abuse since he was mentally impaired. Bodnar had oral sex with the victims in their mother's house and in his workplace while serving as a mentor in a Big Brother program in Salem. After his victims came forward he was arrested and given a ten-year prison sentence.

He was again arrested in 1999 after meeting a boy online. The boy said that he met Bodnar through a phone chat line when he was fifteen-years-old. The boy informed Bodnar that he was fifteen. He claimed that Bodnar had driven him to a hotel in Palm Springs, but he couldn't recall whether anything physical had transpired there. When the boy and Bodnar left the hotel, they went to Bodnar's house, where Bodnar touched the boy's penis and performed oral sex on him. The boy instructed Bodnar to stop, and then left to use the restroom after feeling uneasy. At that point, police officers showed up and took Bodnar into custody. Bodnar was found guilty on a felony count of oral copulation with a minor under sixteen years of age and offender is 21 or more years of age and was sentenced to three years in state prison. Bodnar also had a previous charge for child pornography in another state.

Bodnar accepted a position as general sales manager for Dodge/Chrysler in Palm Springs, California, after being released from prison. He was exposed by Perverted Justice decoy Jay Alternative on August 29, 2003, and his phone number and chat history were made public; however, they were eventually removed because he was never arrested for the incident. On AOL, he used the alias "Casper420tj" and had a brief conversation with a person he thought to be a thirteen-year-old male child prostitute from St. Louis, asking him for pictures, if he was top or bottom, and whether he wanted to continue having sex.

## Chat

Bodnar made contact with another volunteer for Perverted Justice who was posing as "Luke," a thirteen-year-old boy. Using the screen name "CasperIN909," Bodnar sent three images to the decoy. The images ranged from a close-up of a penis in one, a man's bare chest in another, and Bodnar from the shoulders up in the third. That evening, Bodnar and the decoy continued their online communication for almost an hour. The decoy responded that he was forbidden from owning a cell phone when Bodnar questioned if he had one. Bodnar gave "Luke" his phone number and instructed him to dial it as it was not a long distance line. Another Perverted Justice volunteer, Jennifer McKasson, spoke on the phone with Bodnar. McKasson occasionally changed her voice so that it sounded more boyish. On December 25, 2005, McKasson placed Bodnar his first call while pretending to be "Luke." Bodnar and McKasson spoke seven times in total, and the calls were all recorded.

Through the end of December 2005 and into early January 2006, Bodnar and "Luke" continued to communicate via email and online chat. Bodnar once asked "Luke" over the phone if he could leave the house on the following Friday. "Luke" said that Bodnar would need to visit his residence because his parents were in Las Vegas. Bodnar made sure that the boy would be alone in the house. Bodnar inquired about seeing "Luke" that day in another online chat session. "Luke" retorted that Bodnar would have to wait until the weekend. Bodnar discussed what he intended to do with "Luke" and said that he should phone him. "Luke" called Bodnar on January 6, 2006. Bodnar quickly inquired as to if anyone was still at his home. "Luke" said, "Yeah," and enquired as to whether Bodnar would like to visit. Bodnar was instructed by the decoy to enter through the side gate and turn around to face the house's back. As Bodnar drove to the sting house, "Luke" and Bodnar continued their conversation on the phone.

### Confrontation and arrest

Bodnar ran from the house as soon as Chris Hansen confronted him. He was tackled by Riverside police, who were aware of his criminal history and felt he constituted a severe threat. He broke his arm and nose, in addition to getting a black eye and multiple scratches on his face. He was discovered in possession of a camera, a vibrator, and a lubrication container. When questioned by police, he acknowledged that he had come to see a boy but denied knowing his age and refused to admit to any prior offenses, despite the investigating officer having his record jacket, chatlogs, and nude photos.

## Aftermath

### Sentence

Bodnar remained detained in the county jail while a thorough investigation was carried out. On October 20th, 2006, he was officially charged with two felonies: attempted lewd or lascivious acts with a child under fourteen years of age and harmful matter sent to seduce a child. Bodnar was found guilty of the former charge on March 9, 2009, by a jury. The court later determined that the claims regarding the earlier conviction were accurate. Bodnar was given a total of fifteen years in state prison by the court on September 11, 2009. The sentence included a five-year consecutive sentence for the prior violent felony conviction, two consecutive one-year terms for the prior two prison convictions, and an upper sentence of four years for the attempted lewd and lascivious act charge, which was doubled due to Bodnar's prior strike conviction.

### Appeal

On September 15, 2009, Bodnar submitted a notice of appeal. Bodnar argued against his conviction on the grounds that there was lack of evidence to support a result that he thought he was going to meet a child under the age of fourteen, that the trial court made an error by rejecting his proposal for a jury instruction on the defense of entrapment, and that the court had overstepped its bounds by admitting certain evidence pertaining to sexual activity that Bodnar had with a young boy over twenty years ago prior to the present offense. Bodnar also contested the fact that the court mandated that he serve a five-year parole term rather than a three-year term as part of his punishment.

The court's finding that Bodnar believed the child he was going to meet was under fourteen years old, as well as other supporting evidence, led the court to reach the conclusion that there was sufficient evidence to support the jury's decision. It also found that the court had not abused its discretion by allowing the evidence of prior wrongdoing to be admitted. They stated that the trial court did not mistake by omitting to educate the jury on entrapment because, in the court's opinion, there was not enough evidence of entrapment to support such a defense. They consequently upheld Bodnar's conviction on January 3, 2011.

### Lawsuits

In a lawsuit, Bodnar would accuse the jail's medical staff of failing to respond to his complaints about pain following the operation on his fractured arm, which led to his being forced to endure prolonged suffering. Due to the passage of his opportunity to file a complaint relating to the 2006 injury, this action was dismissed in 2014.

Bodnar filed a seperate lawsuit in 2011, claiming that throughout the three years he was held in custody pending trial before being transferred to Valley State Prison in Chowchilla, he had to contend with a gurgling toilet that sprayed coin-sized sewage droplets on the cell floor. Bodnar asserted that his constitutional rights were being violated by these detention conditions, which amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. When the case was almost ready to go to trial, Riverside County resisted the lawsuit at first. A $25,000 settlement was then given to Bodnar. 49 additional convicts filed copycat complaints regarding the restrooms in the Riverside County jail in April 2017, each using Bodnar's case as support for their claim that they too should receive compensation. The same claim is made in each lawsuit. County attorneys claimed that Bodnar was secretly behind each and every lawsuit. For a share of the payment, they claimed Bodnar was "ghostwriting" lawsuits on behalf of other prisoners.

In other words, Bodnar continued to sue Riverside County, bringing the same complaint each time. Almost all of the toilet lawsuits have been brought by inmates at Valley State Prison in Chowchilla, where Bodnar was held after being found guilty in Riverside. All of the complaints were exact copies of Bodnar's original complaint, with only the names and dates changed. One prisoner even made the ghostwriting arrangement public by submitting a handwritten agreement to the court requesting for Bodnar to get a "finder's fee" of 15% of his compensation. Bodnar did not dispute that he had assisted certain prisoners in bringing legal claims, but he insisted that he hadn't assisted all of them and had never received a cut of their settlements. Bodnar said that he collaborated with roughly 15 other inmates to submit comparable complaints during his time as Valley State Prison's inmate legal clerk. He claimed not to be a soliciter. Bodnar initially proposed a $35,000 settlement in exchange for a gag order prohibiting him from assisting other prisoners with their own lawsuits. Bodnar agreed to the county's counteroffer of a $25,000 settlement without a gag order.

## Post-Predator Activities

Bodnar was granted parole in May 2017 with the requirement that he serve the remaining three years of his sentence on probation. Bodnar is an actual sexual predator, but according to the California Sex Offender Registry, his risk evaluation has not been finished. He was subsequently committed to Coalinga State Hospital as a civil detainee after being classified as a sexually violent predator. On April 20, 2018, medical professionals determined that Bodnar met the requirements for being a sexually violent predator and advised his confinement to a facility for treatment. Bodnar claimed that several violations of his due process rights occurred as a result of these evaluators relying on incorrect recommendations developed by various policymakers. He requested a number of injunctive remedy measures. Bodnar's confinement order was not overturned, annulled, or deemed unconstitutional. Without granting leave to amend, however, the case was dismissed and Bodnar was eventually released.

In 2020, Bodnar was taken into custody once more for possession of child pornography, which made him subject to California's Three Strikes Law. Due to the fact that he was judged to have a mental illness, his case was dropped. In lieu of a conviction, he was committed indefinitely.

## Trivia

* Despite being convicted, Bodnar's chatlog cannot be found on Perverted Justice's website.

## Gallery

Bodnar's latest inmate mugshotUndated mugshot of Bodnar
## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 https://dairystatedegenerates.blogspot.com/2021/05/thomas-bodnars-crimes-are-worse-than.html
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 https://www.leagle.com/decision/incaco20110103013
3. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20040612055407/http://www.perverted-justice.com/?archive=Casper420tj
4. ↑ http://www.perverted-justice.com/booking/bookingcollage.html
5. ↑ https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/17-55277/17-55277-2017-08-17.html
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/2017/04/17/fifty-jail-toilet-lawsuits/304802001/
7. ↑ https://casetext.com/case/bodnar-v-clendenin-1