California elementary school principal convicted for sending pornographic messages to minor
An elementary school principal in El Dorado County has been convicted of two felony charges for sending sexually explicit messages to a person he thought was a 12-year-old girl on a social media app, prosecutors said.
Boyd Holler, 37, on Monday pleaded guilty to distributing pornography to a minor and contacting a minor for purposes of committing a sexual offense, the El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office announced Tuesday in a Facebook post.
When he was arrested in October, Holler was working as the principal at Pioneer Elementary School in Somerset. The school is part of the Pioneer Union School District, which is composed of two elementary schools and a middle school.
Patrick Paturel, the district’s superintendent, said the school district has been notified of Holler’s conviction. He said school district officials have sent text messages and emails to parents to notify them of Holler’s guilty plea.
“I continue to be thankful for the families of the Pioneer Union School District community for their trust in our work, our employees and our commitment to students,” Paturel wrote Tuesday morning in a Facebook post. “We are grateful for the agencies involved in the investigation, arrest, and prosecution in this case.”
As part of his plea agreement with prosecutors, Holler agreed to resign from his job at Pioneer Elementary School and is no longer an employee of the school district, Paturel told The Sacramento Bee in an email.
In the month before his arrest, Holler communicated with who he believed was a 12-year-old girl on the Kik social media app, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Holler sought out the girl, identified by the District Attorney’s Office as “J. Doe,” and she quickly told him her age, that she was in seventh grade and that she lived in Philadelphia. Prosecutors said she also sent Holler photos of herself “and was clearly and unequivocally a prepubescent minor.”
Holler then made it clear that she was exactly his type and wanted to meet her to engage in sexual intercourse, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
In the following weeks, Holler sent her pornographic videos and sexually explicit photos, including one of himself, and he repeatedly asked her for pornographic photos of herself, prosecutors said. He communicated with her online while at his office at Pioneer Elementary School, at the Pleasant Valley Holiday Market and at his Pollock Pines home.
Holler is scheduled to return Jan. 22 for his sentencing in El Dorado Superior Court. Prosecutors said will be sentenced three years and eight months in prison, which is the maximum sentence for his charges under California law.
This story was originally published December 12, 2023 at 1:36 PM.
