Former Hays County GOP official arrested for sexual assault of a child

A precinct chair and former sergeant-at-arms for the Hays County Republican Party is in jail on a $250,000 bond after being arrested for aggravated sexual assault of a child. Bo Michael Dresner was booked into the Hays County Jail on April 3 and had not been released as of press time.

According to the probable cause affidavit issued by Justice of the Peace Precinct 5 Scott Cary, Hays County Sheriff’s Det. Kyri Lysek was assigned a sexual assault of a child investigation on March 26, and part of the information she received indicated that there had been reports of sexual abuse involving Dresner and the same victim going back seven years.

The affidavit also states that a Child Protective Services (CPS) Investigator removed four children from Dresner’s custody on March 28. County court records show that there were three CPS cases filed on March 29 regarding the custody of four children in which Dresner was named as a party.

According to a tweet from the Hays County Republican Party, Dresner was appointed as Precinct 336 chair to fill a vacancy in 2015. An archived copy of the Hays County Republican Party’s website from March 2018 lists him as the Precinct 336 chair and sergeant-at-arms for 2016-2018. Dresner was listed as the 2018-2020 Precinct 336 chair for the Hays County Republican Party on the party’s website as of March 26, when Google cached the page listing precinct chairs, but by the night of April 4 his name had been removed.

The Texas Penal Code states that a person can be charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child if the person causes serious bodily injury to the victim or another person in the course of the act; places the victim in fear that someone will be killed, seriously injured or kidnapped; uses or exhibits a deadly weapon in the course of the act; gives the victim any substance “capable of impairing the victim’s ability to appraise the nature of the act or to resist the act”; or if the victim is younger than age 14, regardless of whether the person knew the victim’s age at the time of the offense. The affidavit states that the victim was younger than 14 years of age at the time of the offense and that, during a forensic interview, the victim said Dresner gave her “unidentified medicine” before the alleged offense.

The state Penal Code classifies aggravated sexual assault of a child as a first degree felony. The minimum term of imprisonment for the charge is 25 years if the victim is younger than age 14.