Former Franklin College president sentenced to prison

The former president of Franklin College has been sentenced to six years in prison after pleading no contest to child enticement and other charges following his arrest in a Wisconsin sex crime sting.

A Door County judge also sentenced Thomas Minar on Monday to six years of extended supervision.

Minar, 58, had pleaded no contest in March to one count of child enticement and three counts of possession of child pornography.

Prosecutors said Minar was arrested by Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, police in January 2020, while trying to meet someone he thought was a 15-year-old boy after a sexually explicit chat through an online dating site.

According to court documents, the person Minar was trying to meet was actually an undercover police officer.

Minar was fired by Franklin College, a private, liberal arts college, shortly after his arrest. He had been the school’s president for five years and had previously announced plans to leave the school in June 2020.

Franklin College has an enrollment of about 1,000 students in Johnson County.