Fired KGO Talker Bernie Ward Pleads Guilty, Could Face Five Years

BYE-BYE BERNIE

Indicted KGO Talker Could Face Up To Five Years





*** KGO-7 Bombshell: Complaints About Ward's Sexual Behavior Go Back To The 1970s ***
*** Melanie Morgan Speaks Out On Ward's "Darkness Of The Soul" ***


For several days, San Francisco Bay Area residents have been on pins and needles as they wait to learn the fate of ex- KGO 810 AM talker Bernie Ward, whose criminal indictment on child pornography charges was first broken by your Radio Equalizer in December of last year.

In fact, thousands of people have reached this site as the result of Internet searches over the past 48 hours, looking for the latest.

Since December, KGO-7 (now separated from KGO Radio) and I-Team investigator Dan Noyes has done an outstanding job getting to the bottom of the real story. Was Ward merely investigating kiddie porn for a planned book, as he claimed, or were his motives far more sinister?

In February, Noyes blew Ward's defense to smithereens with an in-depth look at what spooked an Oakdale woman on the receiving end of his dirty pictures. At 6pm PDT this evening, Noyes will deliver another bombshell, this time with a full investigation of his time as a Catholic priest. Watch here for its release. (Update: here's their latest)

Disclosure: your Radio Equalizer was at one time a student of Ward's during a summer session at a Californian prep school.


Now, the week- long rumors can be confirmed: Ward has in fact entered a guilty plea in federal court, apparently in exchange for a sharply reduced sentence. He may serve as little as four years. (right image credit: KGO- 7 News)

From KPIX-5:

Former radio talk show host Bernie Ward today offered a federal judge in San Francisco a guilty plea to one count of sending child pornography over the Internet in December 2004.

But at the request of Ward's defense lawyer, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker deferred accepting the plea until the question of whether Ward must immediately be taken to prison is resolved.

Walker will rule on that question at a sentencing hearing Aug. 28. Defense attorney Doron Weinberg said that in the meantime, Ward has tendered a guilty plea but the judge has taken under submission a decision on whether to accept the plea.

The charge carries a possible maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a mandatory minimum of five years in prison. Weinberg said he expects Ward to be in prison for at least four years.

Ward, 57, told the judge during the hearing that he was aware that the pornography he sent contained sexually explicit pictures of minors.

From this point, it just a matter of waiting for the terms of his sentence and the Noyes report on Ward's past.

As for Bernie himself, however, he seems unwilling even to admit to his problem in a truly honest manner. And there's little doubt he fully expects to return to KGO Radio after his sentence is complete. Is that justice? You decide.


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