Dr. Scott Ward, emeritus professor of marketing,will not teach at Penn again following his arrest in late August for allegedly bringing child pornography into the country while returning from a trip to Brazil. A week after he was arrested at Washington Dulles International airport—where customs agents discovered one video in which he allegedly engaged in sexual acts with teenage boys and another showing sexual acts involving younger children—federal investigators searched Ward’s office in Huntsman Hall. There they reportedly found a CD that Ward had sent to himself containing images of sexual acts between a man believed to be Ward and a teenage boy.
By the time the Gazette was going to press, Ward had still not been released from a Virginia prison and had been denied bail. A federal judge had originally set bail at $2 million and stipulated that if Ward met that bail, he must remain in his Massachusetts residence; that he only leave his home to visit pre-approved places; that he refrain from accessing computers or travel documents; and that he not have contact with minors apart from pre-approved family members. Ward had been scheduled to teach several courses this semester, but after University officials learned of his arrest, Penn President Amy Gutmann announced that the 63-year-old Ward—who had become an emeritus professor during the past academic year—would no longer teach at the University.
This is not Ward’s first brush with the law. In October 1993 he was arrested for allegedly soliciting sex from an undercover state trooper, but was acquitted by a Montgomery County jury on four criminal charges in November 1995. The following July, he was again tried in connection with three sex-related charges. The jury acquitted him of criminal attempt to commit involuntary deviate sexual intercourse but deadlocked on charges of attempting to promote prostitution and corrupt minors. In 1999, he entered an “Alford plea” (in which the defendant acknowledges that sufficient evidence exists for a conviction but does not explicitly admit guilt) on those charges, and was fined $2,500 and sentenced to five years’ probation. —S.H.
