 SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) -- Former KGO radio talk show host Bernie Ward offered a federal judge in San Francisco a guilty plea Thursday, to one count of sending child pornography over the Internet in December 2004.
However U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker deferred accepting the plea until the question of whether Ward must immediately be taken to prison is resolved.
Ward, 57, has tendered a guilty plea, but the judge has taken under submission a decision on whether to accept the plea. The sentencing hearing will be held August 28.
Ward may face a maximum of 20 years in prison, but will be behind bars for at least five years.
Ward told the judge during the hearing that he was aware that the pornography he sent contained sexually explicit pictures of minors, but his attorney says the pictures were part of a book Ward intended to write.
”Bernie did this as part of a journalistic investigation. He thought it was legal to do it as a journalist, and he believed in good faith that it was,” said Ward’s attorney Doron Weinberg. “We can’t hope for lower than five years, cause that’s the mandatory minimum, but it’s incredibly harsh, and it’s totally inappropriate to his conduct.”
Ward was originally charged with two other counts of receiving and attempting to send child pornography in January 2005. Those charges will be dropped as part of the plea bargain.
Ward remains out of custody.
Picture courtesy CBS5.
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KCBS' Chris Filippi reports
