Former professor gets 15 years for child porn

updated 12:44 a.m. ET May 12, 2007

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - A former University of Pennsylvania professor was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison and fined $17,500 for importing child pornography.

Lawrence Scott Ward, 64, of Philadelphia, was arrested Aug. 27 after returning from Brazil through Washington Dulles International Airport. Customs agents discovered child pornography on Ward’s computer and found DVDs containing videos of Ward having sex acts with an underage boy, according to court documents.

Ward pleaded guilty in February in U.S. District Court in Alexandria.

Ward, a professor emeritus at Penn’s Wharton School of Business, is retired. He had been scheduled to teach last fall before university officials relieved him of those duties after his arrest.

In 1999, Ward was accused of soliciting sex from a 23-year-old undercover Pennsylvania state trooper posing as a 15-year-old boy. He was charged with attempting to promote prostitution and corrupt minors and entered an Alford plea, which means he did not admit committing the crimes but conceded prosecutors had enough evidence to convict him. He was fined $2,500 and sentenced to five years of probation.

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