SAN FRANCISCO
Bernie Ward to change not-guilty plea
Radio personality faces trial in month on child porn counts
by Henry K. Lee,
San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 7
                                                              
Former radio talk show host Bernie Ward, who pleaded not guilty in December to distributing and receiving child pornography via the Internet, plans to change his plea Thursday, federal court records show.

Ward, 57, is scheduled to appear before U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker in San Francisco to change his plea. He is a month away from going on trial.

Ward's attorney, Doron Weinberg, was unavailable for comment Tuesday night.

The case against Ward began when he engaged in sex chats with an online dominatrix and allegedly sent her pictures of children engaged in sexual activity, according to a police report.

The woman, who lives in Oakdale (Stanislaus County), became concerned after Ward allegedly sent her pictures in December 2004 showing children "engaged in or simulating sexual acts with adults or other children," Oakdale police Officer Benjamin Savage wrote in a report.

Ward sent her a photo of a naked boy sitting on a chair between a topless woman and a clothed girl, the police report said.

A federal grand jury indicted Ward, a former Catholic priest, in September on two counts distributing child pornography and one count of receiving child porn using the Internet.

After the indictment was unsealed in December, KGO-AM fired him from his job as a talk show host.

Ward pleaded not guilty to the charges in December and had insisted that he was innocent of any wrongdoing. Weinberg has said the conversations Ward had with the woman consisted only of role-playing as part of a book he was researching on hypocrisy.

Last month, Ward sought a ruling from the judge that would allow him to present a defense that he received and distributed "the charged contraband" for legitimate First Amendment purposes, namely to research and comment upon "social mores."

Federal prosecutors opposed any such ruling, saying in court papers that allowing such First Amendment defenses "would invite every defendant charged with child pornography crimes to suddenly become a legitimate researcher educating the masses via their Web log."

E-mail Henry K. Lee at hlee@sfchronicle.com.

what sort of sentence could he get?   just house arrest?

Hopefully more than HA from all that's been released this guy is a sicko.

Sicko he may be, but do we know of any face-to-face victims?  Has Bernie directly misbehaved with or abused kids?

If not, the worst possible punishment is the exposure/publicity which has ended his chosen broadcast career, and the resultant humiliation he suffers on a daily basis wherever he goes in northern California.  

Strikes me as more than enough, particularly if a treatment program is attached in the sentencing to the house arrest & community service.

***SEE UPDATE BELOW ... BERNIE'S GONNA BE LOCKED UP FOR YEARS!!***

Best punishment?  Locked in a room with earphones wired to Limbaugh and O'Reilly 24/7

Radio host Bernie Ward admits he e-mailed child porn to woman known as 'Sexfairy'
Bay City News Service
San Jose Mercury News
Article Launched: 05/08/2008 03:19:14 PM PDT

Former radio talk show host Bernie Ward offered a guilty plea in federal court in San Francisco today to one count of sending child pornography over the Internet in December 2004.

Ward, 57, a former host on KGO radio in San Francisco, admitted to the charge during a hearing before U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker. He told the judge he sent pornography containing sexually explicit pictures of minors by e-mail.

But at the request of Ward's defense lawyer, Walker deferred accepting the plea until the question of whether Ward must immediately be taken to prison is resolved.

Walker will rule on that question at a sentencing hearing Aug. 28. Defense attorney Doron Weinberg said that in the meantime, Ward's legal status is that he has tendered a guilty plea but the judge has taken whether to accept it under advisement.

The charge carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison and a possible maximum of 20 years. Weinberg said he expects Ward to spend at least four years and three months in prison even with credit for good behavior.

Ward, a former Catholic priest and teacher, lives in San Francisco, is married and has four children. He worked in radio for about 20 years and most recently hosted a night show Monday through Friday and a Sunday morning show called 'Godtalk' on KGO.

Weinberg told the judge that Ward's use of pornography occurred "in a few weeks in 2004 and 2005" and reflected "an error in judgment rather than sexual proclivity."

The defense lawyer previously said Ward was looking at the child pornography for research on a book on hypocrisy. The defense had filed a motion asking Walker to allow Ward to argue that his actions were protected by the First Amendment.

But outside the Federal Building courthouse today, Weinberg said the defense team concluded that courts would not allow that argument.

"He thought it was legal to do it as a journalist, but our conclusion was that the courts wouldn't accept that," Weinberg said.

"Bernie is not a sexual predator," the attorney said.

Ward had been scheduled to go to trial before a jury in Walker's court on June 9. He was originally charged in an indictment last year with two other counts of receiving and attempting to send child pornography in January 2005. Those charges would be dropped as part of the plea bargain.

The pornography came to light when a woman in Oakdale in Stanislaus County who had been exchanging sexual messages with Ward under the name of 'Sexfairy' alerted police that Ward had sent her an image of child pornography on Dec. 23, 2004, according to Oakdale police reports.

She gave police a copy of the picture and e-mail messages and the case was eventually referred to the FBI, the reports said.

The charge in the indictment to which Ward offered a plea is that he "did knowingly distribute child pornography" on Dec. 23, 2004.

But in a separate written plea agreement, Ward admitted for sentencing purposes that he distributed a total of between 15 and 150 images of child pornography via e-mail.

The case was prosecuted by lawyers from the U.S. Justice Department's child exploitation and obscenity section in Washington, D.C.

Assistant U.S. Attorney General Alice Fisher said in a written statement that the 15 to 150 images Ward admitted sending "involved prepubescent children engaged in sexually explicit conduct, some with sadistic, masochistic or violent conduct."

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