Student Activist Faces Sex Charges WSU Man Accused Of Entering Dorm Rooms And Fondling Women
A Washington State University student active in campus issues was being held in the Whitman County Jail on Friday after being accused of entering the dormitory rooms of female students and fondling them.
Ronald J. Thomas Jr., 30, was held on $10,000 bail for one count of burglary and two counts of indecent liberties.
Student leaders had a hard time believing the Ron Thomas in jail was the same one they knew.
While he was living in university housing, school officials said they were unaware he had a prior felony conviction discovered upon his arrest. They said they have no procedure for checking criminal records.
“He’s been really involved in this community,” said Neil Walker, president of the Associated Students of WSU. “He’s been very helpful with student issues. … I’m just shocked more than anything.”
Thomas, of Mercer Island, helped lead protests several years ago on behalf of Dallas Barnes, a black professor who accused the school of discrimination.
Last January, he was one of four WSU students to receive a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Distinguished Service Award for “outstanding contributions and commitment to the ongoing struggle for racial harmony, equality and equity” within the WSU and Pullman communities.
More recently, he was designated as a student representative to meet with administrators about incorporating more diversity-related subjects in the undergraduate curriculum.
According to WSU police, someone entered the room of a Stephenson Hall student last May and began fondling her while she slept.
He left after she told him to but not before he asked for sex, WSU Officer James Garrison said.
On Sept. 14, a man entered the room of a woman in Streit Hall - three floors above where Thomas was living - and fondled her, police said. The woman, who said she had passed out earlier after drinking gin, left the room.
The woman knew Thomas and identified him as the intruder. The student in the earlier attack then picked him out of a lineup months later.
Police are now investigating several other recent incidents in which women were confronted by a man in Regents Hall, which sits just west of Streit, said WSU Capt. Mike Kenny.
Thomas pleaded guilty in 1991 to second-degree assault and was sentenced to 37 days of jail and two years probation.
According to a police affidavit filed in that case, Thomas struck another man in the head with an aluminum baseball bat. The victim required medical attention but was not hospitalized, the affidavit said.
, DataTimes