A former Holmes County school administrator has received a 30-year sentence after pleading guilty last month to sexual battery against a student.
Dyana Thomas was sentenced by Leflore County Circuit Judge Richard Smith to 15 years in prison with the remaining 15 years being suspended upon completing five years of post-release supervision.
The details of the conviction and July 23 sentence were announced Monday by District Attorney W. Dewayne Richardson.
Thomas was arrested in May 2019 by the Leflore County Sheriff’s Department. At the time, he was living in Greenwood and working as assistant principal of Holmes County Central High School.
Richardson said that an investigator with the Sheriff’s Department determined that Thomas, then 49 years old, had picked up in Cruger a 17-year-old female, who was a junior at the high school, and brought her to Leflore County to engage in sexual activity.
The Commonwealth reported at the time of Thomas’ arrest that he had a criminal history at previous schools where he had worked in Alabama.
He had been a principal at four high schools in that state and twice been convicted of misusing school funds for personal gain.
The Leflore County case against Thomas was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Amanda Sturniolo Langford.
“This has been one of the most egregious cases that I have worked on since starting with the District Attorney’s Office because of the Defendant’s blatant abuse of authority over a child that he was entrusted to educate,” Langford said in a prepared statement.
“While we cannot erase what happened, I hope that we have given the victim some closure. Without her and her family’s help and patience, we could not have been able to catch this predator and protect future students from being groomed and manipulated by him.”
- Contact Tim Kalich at 581-7243 or tkalich@gwcommonwealth.com.
