Ten more years for ex-Wharton prof in sex case

A former Wharton School professor - already serving a 15-year federal prison term for trafficking in child pornography - was sentenced yesterday to 10 years more for smuggling still photos and video of himself having sex with a 16-year-old Brazilian boy.

In addition to the child-pornography charges to which Lawrence Scott Ward pleaded guilty in November, the former University of Pennsylvania marketing professor also admitted lying to U.S. consular officials in Recife, Brazil, between March and August 2006, when he tried to get the boy, identified as J.D., a visa to enter the United States.

Ward, 67, a tall, stocky man with a shock of thick salt-and-pepper gray hair, apologized to the court. He also said he had apologized to J.D. and arranged to support the boy's wife and baby and put J.D. through school.

Ward, who witnesses testified had sexual relationships with boys here and abroad dating to 1977, told U.S. District Judge Petrese B. Tucker the three years in prison since his 2006 arrest had changed him.

"I don't believe I ever realized the depth of my problem and the nature of my disability," Ward said.

Dressed in an olive prison jumpsuit, Ward asked Tucker not to add to his prison term and to make the sentence concurrent to his 15-year term.

"I didn't get it at first, I think, but after the last year spent [in prison], I sure get it now," Ward added.

Tucker sentenced Ward to a concurrent 25-year prison term, effectively adding 10 years to his current sentence. Tucker also put Ward on lifetime court supervision if he ever gets out and ordered him to pay J.D. $100,000 restitution.

Tucker called Ward "clearly a threat to the community" and said he preyed on the "most vulnerable of our young citizens: young people who are troubled, who are poor, and who have criminal records."

Defense attorney Mark Sheppard argued for a term that would give Ward hope of future freedom.

Sheppard told Tucker the Philadelphia criminal case was too related to the circumstances of Ward's original arrest on Aug. 27, 2006, at Dulles International Airport, near Washington, to warrant additional prison time.

"When is enough enough?" Sheppard asked.

Ward, then professor emeritus at Penn's business school, was returning from Brazil when U.S. customs agents, doing a routine luggage check, found child pornography on his laptop computer.

Ward, a Pittsburgh native, taught at Harvard Business School before joining Penn's Wharton School in 1980.

After a federal judge in eastern Virginia sentenced Ward, prosecutors here charged him with additional counts.

The Philadelphia charges, to which Ward pleaded guilty last year, involved two incidents earlier in August 2006 - in Maui, Hawaii, and again at Dulles - from which Ward allegedly mailed his private Penn office six DVDs and CDs containing 87 photos of J.D., most of which showed him having sex with Ward.

Sheppard presented expert testimony from a psychologist who said Ward's age and willingness to get therapy made it unlikely he would commit similar offenses again.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Bea L. Witzleben cited Ward's long history of sex offenses, including several arrests. She said Ward had $3 million in assets, including homes in Hawaii, Cape Cod, and Brazil, and traveled to Brazil, the Philippines, and the Netherlands to have sex with boys.

Witzleben also said Ward once threatened to withdraw support from J.D.'s impoverished mother when the boy balked at some sex acts.

Ward was also recently moved into solitary confinement at the Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia, Witzleben said, after prison officials found pictures of J.D. and other victims in his cell and learned he had written to his Brazilian lawyer to try to contact J.D.'s family.