Posted on 02/14/2008 12:52:56 AM PST by raccoonradio
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- The ABC7 I-Team has the inside story of what lead up to the arrest of popular talk-radio host, Bernie Ward, on federal child pornography charges. It's an investigation you'll see Only On 7. We warn you that some of the information is graphic.
Bernie Ward got indicted in December and got fired from his job at KGO Radio, effective at the end of last year. Now, police reports just obtained by the I-Team tell us who blew the whistle on Ward, and how he came to send the woman child porn, by his own admission.
The case against Bernie Ward began with a phone call to the Oakdale Police Department, just outside Modesto.
We received a report from a local resident of Oakdale that she had gotten an e-mail message and pornographic material involving juveniles," says Chief Marty West with the Oakdale Police Department.
The woman gave police the photographs and a transcript of her online conversation with Bernie Ward.
It's Christmas week, three years ago. Ward's on his home computer using the screen name "Vincentlio." He begins the chat with "Good afternoon, mistress." The woman using the name "Sexfairy" answers, "How was your day, slave?" In explicit detail, Ward describes being humiliated sexually. At one point, he asks, "Are you going to make me feel dirty, mistress?" "Sexfairy" answers, "Yes, I am."
Ward discusses group sex he had at an infamous porn theater in San Mateo. Then, nearly an hour into the conversation, he brings up photographs, "I love trading pictures." "Sexfairy" answers, "and why haven't I gotten any pics, slave? Send me some."
Ward sends several pictures -- one of a woman and two children. Ward describes her as a mother in her late thirties, she's topless. He says the naked boy is 14, that the girl wearing clothes is 12. They're all touching in a sexual way.
"Sexfairy" writes, "brb," (be right back). A half hour later, she's on the phone with police, reporting Bernie Ward for child porn. They tell her to keep chatting with Ward.
"It would be important to the case to gather as much information as possible in support of bringing charges against the person that's sending these pornographic messages," says Chief West.
In the days that follow, "Sexfairy" asks Ward for more pictures -- he complies. Then, police get a search warrant for Ward's AOL account. E-mail sent and received by Vincentlio had pictures attached.
An investigator writes, "several of the photographs depicted children engaged in or simulating sexual acts with adults or other children." The ages of the children in the pictures -- four to 17 years old.
"Bernie is an upstanding pillar of the community," says Jeannette Boudreau, Ward's civil attorney.
More: Ward’s criminal defense and civil attorneys declined to be interviewed on camera Wednesday. However, they repeated what they’ve said from the beginning — that Ward was doing research for a book.
“Whatever he did was inadvertent, it was something that was a violation maybe of the letter of the law, but certainly the one thing Bernie is not is a child pornographer. He’s not a child molester,” Boudreau told us in December of 2007.
They also now say Ward was role-playing during the online chats with “Sexfairy” and that all details of his sexual activity were 100-percent false. The former KGO Radio host is facing two counts for distribution of child pornography and one count for receipt of child porn.
With a jury trial set for June, ABC7 legal analyst, Dean Johnson, says the transcript of the Internet chats knocks down Ward’s claim that he was researching a book.
“That’s very bad news for Bernie because in these messages we not only have an almost systematic knocking down of every defense that could be raised to possession or distribution of child pornography,” says Johnson.
Also, from the federal case file, we learned Ward’s conditions of release on his $250,000 bond. He surrendered his passport. He’s confined to his home with electronic monitoring — he can leave only for work and to drive his children to and from school. His computer use is limited to his employment and he cannot have unsupervised contact with minors other than his children.
A difficult time for Ward, now, and a grim outlook for his future.
“If these Internet conversations are accurate, if they’re truthful, if they correctly reflect what Bernie said, Bernie is potentially in a lot of trouble,” says Johnson.
There’s so much more in the police report that we can’t discuss because it’s just too graphic. Federal prosecutors declined to be interviewed for this report. We’ve been unable so far to contact the woman known as “Sexfairy.” I did reach Bernie Ward directly and he says he would like to tell his side of the story, but he has to take his attorneys’ advice not to talk.
>>Ward’s on his home computer
They traced it back to his AOL account. Really smart move Bernie! To Catch A Libtalk Host.
How (in all hell) could “book research” involve transmitting the damned stuff?
Maybe. But Republicans are really bad people. (According to Bernie.)
That should read indictment - PRESS RELEASE in post no. 7.
Ward is obviously just a typical liberal Democrat.
Guess I know why now.
Disregard last post. It was the Ed Schultz program.
Smiling at you...
I disregarded it.
I don’t know anyone who listened to Bernie Ward.
This is what liberals are: perverts and criminals.
a liberal and an anti-semite. let him rot
I left the bay area a couple of years ago so this is the first I have heard of this. Wow. I seem to remember that KGO had another talk show host that jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. Pete Wilson died last year after surgery from a massive heart attack. I wonder, is Ronn Owens still around?
I have to take the side of the MSM on this one. Rush is somebody, thus he deserves attention. Ward is nobody, and no one listens to him. Go to jail and rot in obscurity, Bernie.
Yeah, Duane Garrett. The first, and probably last, liberal talk host that I thought was intelligent, thoughtful, and honorable. His death was very, very sad. I think he got caught falsifying sports memorabilia in his regular business and killed himself out of shame.
I wouldn't always agree with him, but I thought that he shared the same goals and just saw a different way to achieve them. Not like the "modern" liberal who has the fundamentally different goal of hating anything American. I still occasionally wonder how/if he would fit into the insane, hateful, group that the democratic party has become.
Yeah, right.
The scummy, rotting, crumbling, excrement smeared column way in the back, off to the side in the really dark corner doing who knows what to small animals.
But he is a "pillar" and it's kind of standing upright and he lurks at the edge of a community, tho' he has to be anonymous.
What a pervert.
He was just role playing/researching a book so it’s ok....riiiight. Aside from how sick this is, it is also incredibly stupid.
Couldn’t of happened to a bigger Libtard.
Has the Sf Gay-Les-Bi-Trans-Beast-Nambla etc etc “rainbow” rallied to ol Bernies side?
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