Kiddie porn killed the radio star

This local story about a high-profile federal child porn sentencing case made it impossible to avoid linking to the great first video ever shown on MTV.  Of course, the specifics of the sentencing are no joking matter for anyone involved:

Bernie Ward, one of the Bay Area’s most prominent radio talk show hosts for 15 years, was sentenced to more than seven years in prison by a federal judge today for distributing child pornography on the Internet.

Ward, 57, pleaded guilty to the felony charge in May and admitted sending between 15 and 150 pornographic images by e-mail, which he maintained were for a research project.  Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker in San Francisco imposed a sentence of seven years and three months, rejecting a defense plea for the minimum five-year term required by federal law.  Prosecutors had sought a nine-year term….

Ward spent 24 years with KGO-AM in San Francisco, first as a reporter and later as the host of a talk show on news and politics that ran three hours every weeknight. A former Roman Catholic priest, he also hosted “God Talk,” a Sunday morning program that discussed religious issues….

Ward was charged after a woman in Oakdale (Stanislaus County) contacted police in 2005 and said an ex-priest, later identified as Ward, had been having sex chats with her by e-mail and had sent her a photo showing child pornography. Police got a search warrant for the online account and found about 100 images showing minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, prosecutors said in court papers.

Ward’s lawyer, Doron Weinberg, described the online conversations with the woman as role-playing. Ward has said he downloaded the images as part of his research for a proposed book on hypocrisy among Americans who preach morality. 

Prosecutors said they had evidence that Ward had shared graphic images of child sex with a group of 10 people for about a year. Ward’s motive and intent were irrelevant to his guilt under federal law, which makes possessing, receiving or distributing child pornography a felony punishable by at least five years in prison.