Ex-prof, jailed as perv, faces child-porn charges
Convicted sex offender Lawrence Scott Ward's keen interest in sex with young boys has gotten him in trouble with the law yet again.
Convicted sex offender Lawrence Scott Ward's keen interest in sex with young boys has gotten him in trouble with the law yet again.
After the third allegation in 14 years of having sex with minors, Ward, 65, emeritis professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, was finally removed from the classroom.
Now, Ward is sitting in a federal prison cell in Loretto, Pa., 80 miles east of Pittsburgh, serving a mandatory 15-year sentence for importing child pornography into Dulles International Airport in 2006.
Yesterday, in a case related to the Dulles airport incident, a four-count indictment in Philadelphia charged Ward with shipping child porn twice to his Penn office.
He was also charged with lying about the impoverished background of a 16-year-old Brazilian boy, with whom he was having sex, in order to get him a visa from the U.S. Consulate in Recife, Brazil.
If convicted, he faces a mandatory 15-year federal sentence, a fine of up to $750,000 and forfeiture of the pornographic materials.
The globe-trotting prof's actions in Virginia gave federal immigration and customs agents here probable cause to raid Ward's Penn office, according to assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Levy. The agents said they seized six DVDs, each a video of Ward having sex with the Brazilian teen, identified as J.D.
Agents said Ward sent the DVDs to his office by FedEx on Aug. 1, 2006, from his home in Maui, Hawaii, prior to a trip to Brazil. Also found in his Penn office was a CD of sexually explicit photographs of the 16-year-old victim, postmarked Aug. 8, 2006, that was sent from Dulles airport, according to the indictment.
Investigators said Ward had showered the boy's destitute mother with gifts, money and housing in order to induce J.D. to have sex with him.
The boy's mother advised her son that oral sex with Ward, and other males chosen by the prof, was part of a "growth program." She threatened to withdraw her affection and support if he did not comply with Ward's desires, the indictment charges.
When the boy was turned down for a visa, the indictment charged that Ward used his Penn credentials to impress authorities, claimed the youth was from a "reasonably wealthy family by Brazilian standards," then got a friend to deposit money in a phony account in Brazil in the name of the youth's father. The visa decision was reversed, and Ward brought the teen here. *
