Todd M. Thomas, 24, was sentenced to 26 years in prison last Friday after a D.C. Superior Court jury found him guilty of 11 separate crimes, including burglary and assault of Georgetown students. While some local media outlets, including the Washington Post and Saxaspeak, identified Thomas as the “Georgetown Cuddler,” the victims in Thomas’s case were male and Thomas has not been found to be connected to other cases of sexual assault on and near Georgetown’s campus.
Thomas was convicted of charges of sexual abuse and assault. Thomas pled not guilty to all charges.
Thomas was arrested on August 22, 2008 after a Georgetown student living four blocks away from campus awoke in the living room of his residence to find Thomas caressing his shoulders. After the student yelled, Thomas left the residence but later reentered it. A second Georgetown student at a different residence awoke and called 911 when Thomas caressed his calves. The Metropolitan Police Department arrested Thomas in a vehicle two blocks away from the incident.
In two other cases, victims testified that they had awoken to see Thomas sitting on their beds, in another two cases he had fondled the victims’ genitals, and in one case, he had touched the victims’ feet. The crimes Thomas was found guilty of all occurred between July 2007 and August 2008.
According to a court memorandum on March 12, one of Thomas’ main defense was an evaluation by Dr. Ronald Koshes, a psychiatrist hired by the defense authority, concluding that Thomas is “not dangerous, nor is he a sexual predator.” In a letter to the court, Koshes wrote that Thomas was a “victim of malt liquor.” Thomas testified that “when he drank, he felt more relaxed … and he obsessed less about others would think.”
However, the prosecution, lead by U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen, Jr., rejected this argument, noting in a Memorandum in Aid of Sentencing, that none of the victims had reported that Thomas was intoxicated when he assaulted them, and that “alcohol in and of itself does not cause a person to unlawfully enter a stranger’s home and try to force them to engage in sexual conduct.”
