Bernie Ward Biography
Bernie Ward (Bernard Vincent Ward) is an American former radio personality. Formerly a radio talk show host with KGO 810 AM in San Francisco, California, Ward served a six-year prison sentence for the online distribution of child pornography.He, once billed by KGO as “The Lion of the Left” and “unabashedly liberal,” was the host of the daily news talk program, The Bernie Ward Show, and the three-hour program, GodTalk, on Sunday mornings.
Ward was rejected from KGO in December 2007 following an indictment of his federal grand jury for child pornography. Subsequently, in a plea deal with federal prosecutors, Ward confessed to a single felony charge for distributing child pornography and signed an admission to distribute between 15 and 150 pictures by email.
Born in San Francisco, California, Bernie Ward attended Holy Name Grammar School, St. Ignatius High School, and San Francisco University. He then researched at the Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley for three years and obtained a degree in Theology in 1977. That same year he was ordained to the Roman Catholic priesthood with the Precious Blood Missionaries, but he was ordained to the Roman Catholic priesthood.
Ward later taught theology with his sister school, Ursuline High School, at Cardinal Newman High School in Santa Rosa, California. In 1978, allegations of Ward’s sexual misconduct started to surface at Ursuline. Ward also taught at the Preparatory Bellarmine College in San Jose, California. In 1981, he moved to Washington, D.C. Where he trained in Georgetown P marriage and sex education.
Bernie Ward Age
He was born on April 5, 1951, San Francisco, CA. He is currently 68 years.
Bernie Ward Radio talk show host
Ward’s employment at KGO (AM) began in 1985 where he served as a fill-in talk show host, a general-assignment reporter, and later as a political talk show host starting in 1992. As a reporter, where Jerry Jay Carroll of the San Francisco Chronicle noted on October 25, 1995, that it had become a ritual for the mayor at that time, Art Agnos, to denounce him for lies at the beginning of every news.
Ward’s talk show was briefly syndicated nationally in 1996 until his ratings declined. His show’s ratings started to enhance in 1997 in Ward’s key demographic group (females aged 25 to 54) as a consequence of his more lenient opinions on subjects such as child-rearing and ethics. On 5 October 1997, a rumor was released that KGO had suspended Bernie Ward’s contract at the end of the month.
In protest, fans of his show flooded KGO studios with canned food donations, continuing Ward’s seven-year Thanksgiving fundraising drive that had netted more than $1 million in donations shared by the St. Anthony Foundation and two other charities in the area. The protest culminated in a noontime rally held in front of KGO studios.
Bernie Ward Child pornography conviction
On September 20, 2007, Ward was indicted by a grand jury on two federal counts of Attempting to Distribute and one count of receiving child pornography via the Internet from December 2004 to January 2005. Ward’s police inquiry began with a complaint from a homemaker in Stanislaus County who posed as a dominatrix online under the screen name “Sexfairy2005” and who had engaged in the inquiry.
Ward sent pornographic pictures of kids to the chat partner, which led her to contact police, according to the police report. With her assistance, the police started gathering proof and continued chatting with Ward. Ward also outlined sexual activity with his own kids in the chat logs. Ward and his kids later both told researchers that none of the activities described in the chats ever actually occurred, Ward contending it was just sexual fantasy talk.
Ward’s lawyer did not dispute chatting or transmitting the pictures in a declaration but instead claimed that Ward was partly playing a role with the dominatrix for studies into a novel on hypocrisy in America. Federal researchers could discover no proof that Ward was working on such a novel. Ward’s lawyer stated that no illegal pictures were discovered on his laptop by federal officials.
However, after police received a search warrant for Ward’s internet account, they discovered about 100 child pornography pictures on AOL’s opened and forwarded servers in his AOL email account, with kids involved in sexual activity. Ward announced on 8 May 2008 an agreement to plead guilty to one count of Child Pornography Distribution in exchange for dropping two additional charges.
In his plea agreement, Ward acknowledges that he had communicated child pornography “between 15 and 150 occasions.” Ward could have been convicted under federal statute to between five and 20 years in prison. The Department of Justice requested that he be sentenced to nine years in prison. On 28 August 2008, Judge Vaughn Walker convicted Ward to seven years and three months in federal prison.
Judge Walker remarked that Ward’s supposed sexual misconduct may go to personality while serving as a priest, but the incidents occurred too long ago to be applicable to his sentencing decision. He also said he wasn’t confident that sending Ward to jail would be the best way to handle such issues with a person and that “very little good has come out of all this.”
Ward’s 87-month sentence was lowered by 15 percent with excellent conduct, making him eligible for Supervised Release on December 19, 2014; there is no parole in the federal system. Ward is a licensed sex offender on release from jail California’s Megan’s Law. For the rest of his life, Ward must notify and register his residence with local law enforcement