Former Neurosurgery professor Tracy McIntosh will proceed with his court-mandated resentencing for a 2002 sexual assault.
McIntosh and his lawyer, Joel Trigiani, announced the decision Friday morning in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. McIntosh's other option was to try to withdraw his original no-contest plea and go to trial.
Judge Pamela Pryor Dembe set sentencing for Dec. 21.
Assistant District Attorney Richard DeSipio said after the hearing that prosecutors would ask for the maximum penalty of 5 to 10 years in prison.
The sentencing could finally bring some closure to a case that has stayed in the spotlight since McIntosh pleaded no contest to charges of sexually assaulting his college roommate's 23-year-old niece in 2004. After McIntosh entered his plea, Common Pleas Judge Rayford Means initially imposed a sentence of 11 « to 23 months of house arrest.
But the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office vehemently protested the sentence, arguing that Means had considered McIntosh to be above the law due to his status as a preeminent figure in the field of neurosurgery.
The state Superior Court agreed and overturned that sentence last November, also saying that Means had been too lenient.
At a Sept. 14 hearing, Trigiani asked Dembe to reinstate the original sentence, arguing that it was the result of a backroom deal made by the prosecutors, McIntosh's former defense attorneys and Means.
Dembe refused to reinstate the sentence, and has denied Trigiani's motion for a hearing in which he planned call as witnesses Means and former McIntosh lawyers Thomas Bergstrom and Arthur Donato to testify about the alleged plea deal.
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