Ward still may face Pa. charges

Convicted sex felon and former Marketing professor Scott Ward is still under investigation for additional child-pornography charges in Pennsylvania, prosecutors said last week.

Ward is being sought in Pennsylvania after authorities found a CD of child pornography and other explicit material in his Huntsman Hall office last August.

"Our investigation is continuing," said Patty Hartman, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney Eastern District of Pennsylvania. "He hasn't been charged yet."

Ward was sentenced to 15 years in prison and levied a $17,500 fine in May after pleading guilty to producing child pornography for importation into the United States, but a second trial for the photographs in Huntsman Hall could occur.

Assistant U.S. Attorney General Michael Levy in Pennsylvania, who was unavailable for comment, said last spring that a separate trial in Pennsylvania leaves the possibility for consecutive sentence open. Levy also serves as a lecturer at Penn Law.

Hartman could not say if or when a second trial might take place.

Ward's conviction for importation of child pornography stems from his arrest last August when authorities discovered child pornography on his laptop computer and several mini-DVDs after he was retained during a routine luggage check at Washington's Dulles International Airport.

The Pennsylvania charges, on the other hand, are related to the CD in Huntsman Hall that contained more than 80 photos of a person believed to be Ward and a boy estimated to be between 14 and 15 years old engaged in "explicit sexual activity," according to an arrest affidavit from special agent Richard Stingle.

Authorities also found explicit videos of Ward and the same boy in a FedEx box that Ward had sent to himself, the affidavit said.

At least some of the scenes in the videos take place in bedrooms. In the background, Stingle noted that the TV was playing in a language other than English, and a third person, possibly a camera operator, was also speaking a foreign language.

Prior to his arrest, custom officials had grown suspicious of Ward's frequent trips to Thailand, a destination known for child-predator sex tourists, a police report said.

It is unknown whether Ward is seeking new legal representation. His lawyer for the Virginia case did not return calls for comment.

He is currently serving time in a low-security federal correction facility in western Pennsylvania.

Ward retired from Penn in 2005 but was still teaching classes until shortly after his arrest.

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