Ex-cop sentenced to 10 years probation in sexual abuse of Central Texas boy in 2017

WACO, Texas (KWTX) - A former Clifton police officer, called “an embarrassment to law enforcement” by a prosecutor, was sentenced to 10 years probation and fined $10,000 Friday in the sexual abuse of a teen boy at a wedding reception in 2017.

Jurors in Waco’s 19th State District Court deliberated about an hour before granting David Christopher Boen’s request for probation. The jury took 4 ½ hours to convict Boen of indecency with a child by contact, a second-degree felony that carried a maximum 20-year prison term.

As a convicted sex offender, Boen, 34, will be required to register for life, will be stripped of his law enforcement credentials, and will have to move from the house he and his wife lived in for 12 years because of its proximity to Bosqueville schools.

Boen, a former McLennan County jailer, a former McLennan County deputy constable, and a former Meridian police officer, declined comment after the four-day trial, as did his attorneys, Aubrey Robertson and Vic Feazell.

WATCH: Boen’s defense attorneys stand by his side moments after the trial ended

McLennan County District Attorney Josh Tetens thanked the jury for its service, and said he thinks probation was appropriate in this case, although he said it is disappointing that Boen failed to accept responsibility for his actions.

Tetens, like prosecutors Tara Avants and Liz Buice told the jury, said Boen should be held to a higher standard because of his past law enforcement background. Boen was an officer in Clifton when he molested a 15-year-old boy at a wedding reception at Karem Shrine near China Spring in June 2017.

“As a police officer, you are entrusted with the community safety, taking care of us, watching over us. It is to protect and serve,” Tetens said. “And for somebody to take advantage of an innocent young child, in this case four boys, that is absolutely why he should be held to a higher standard.”

The victim, who is now 21, angrily chided Boen during an inflammatory victim-impact statement, calling him the “most disgusting human being he ever met.” He told Boen that while he will be going home on probation, the pain Boen caused him and others will never go away.

WATCH: District Attorney Josh Tetens reacts to verdict

“You are a pedophile. You ruined the lives of innocent, helpless children,” he said, ending his statement by bitterly cursing at Boen before walking off the witness stand.

The victim, who was 15 at the time, testified Tuesday that Boen gave him and his friends “screwdrivers” from the bar at the reception and got him drunk. He said Boen asked him to walk with him to a dark area away from the reception hall, where he said Boen turned the conversation to sex, and asked him if he had ever had oral sex.

He said Boen fondled his penis after he twice pulled down his pants after Boen goaded him into proving he was not aroused by the inappropriate conversation.

The girlfriend of the accuser’s older brother testified Wednesday that Boen insisted on riding with her and the boy’s brother to an after-wedding dinner at IHOP. She told the jury that Boen asked her if he could perform oral sex on the accuser’s older brother, who was in the backseat, and groped him while fumbling with his belt.

In punishment-phase testimony Friday, a 20-year-old autistic man testified that Boen was coach of a Little League baseball team he and his brother played on, and they went over to Boen’s house after practice one day in 2011. He said Boen asked the boys, who were 6 and 7, if they wanted to watch TV while he took a shower.

The man said Boen came into the living room after his shower with no clothes on and played a pornographic DVD. The man said he felt uncomfortable and was shocked at what he saw on the TV screen, while Boen asked them if they liked what the young boys were seeing.

The incident prompted an investigation by the McLennan County Sheriff’s Office, but it did not lead to Boen’s arrest.

Boen denied every allegation against him, explaining that perhaps the boy and his family were mad at him because he called him, his friend and his cousin out at the reception for their underage drinking and drunken state.

In punishment-phase summations, Avants called Boen “an embarrassment to law enforcement,” telling jurors that a recommendation of probation would be a “gift.”

She said he betrayed the trusts of the four victims highlighted during the trial and said it would be hard to trust him to follow the rules of probation when he broke the law as a police officer and refuses to accept responsibility for the offense for which he was convicted.

In sentencing Boen, Judge Thomas West said Boen would be placed in the probation department’s sex offender treatment program, which the judge described as “arduous at best.”

Boen asked the jury for probation, and under questioning from Feazell, said he was aware of what happens to police officers who are sent to prison, which, in his case, would be worse because he is a former cop convicted as a child molester.

“I probably wouldn’t survive more than six months in prison,” Boen said.

Under cross-examination from Buice, Boen continued to assert that he was not guilty.

“So you are not even accepting responsibility for what you did, and you want this jury to have mercy on you?” Buice asked.

“I don’t know how to answer that question,” Boen said. “I’m in shock.”

Feazell wanted to call Boen’s wife, Carrie, as a witness during the punishment phase. However, she left the courtroom in tears and Feazell told the court she was too upset to testify.

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