Retired School Teacher Sentenced to Federal Prison for Traveling to Engage in Sex with a Minor

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Leroy Lawrence Bolger, Jr., 75, of Kingsland, Georgia, was sentenced to more than three years in federal court after pleading guilty to traveling with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct.

Evidence presented to the court showed that in early March 2022, members of the South Carolina Attorney General’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (ICAC), including Homeland Security Investigations, conducted an undercover investigation targeting online sexual offenders. As part of this investigation, an officer created an undercover online persona of an adult male seeking individuals to have sex with his 13-year-old daughter residing in Beaufort, South Carolina.

Bolger responded to the undercover officer’s internet ad and engaged in sexually explicit conversations with the undercover officer.  In their conversations, Bolger discussed his desire to engage in various sex acts with the undercover officer’s purported 13-year-old daughter, including sexual intercourse. Bolger also agreed to pay $50 to have sex with the child.

On March 1, 2022, Bolger drove from Kingsland, Georgia to a predetermined location in Beaufort, South Carolina to meet the purported father and 13-year-old daughter, and to engage in illicit sexual conduct with the girl.  When Bolger arrived, he encountered law enforcement officers instead and was placed under arrest. Bolger admitted that he had planned to engage in illicit sexual conduct with the girl. He also stated that he was a retired teacher and athletics coach who had worked in schools in North Carolina and Florida during his 38-year career.

United States District Judge Bruce Howe Hendricks sentenced Bolger to 46 months imprisonment, to be followed by a lifetime term of court-ordered supervision.  There is no parole in the federal system.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the U.S. Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals, who sexually exploit children, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc.

This case was investigated by the South Carolina Attorney General’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (ICAC), including Homeland Security Investigations, Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office, Beaufort Police Department, Marion County Sheriff’s Office, and other law enforcement agencies. Assistant U.S. Attorney Dean H. Secor is prosecuting the case.

###