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Retired Harrison TV presenter and teacher sentenced to 10 years in prison for child pornography

Lina Portman3 days ago

0 3 minutes read

A renowned teacher and sportscaster whose arrest on child pornography charges three years ago shocked Harrison High School and the Westchester sports community was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in federal prison by a judge who called his crimes “intentional exploitation” of teenagers.

“He took advantage of the most vulnerable people in our society, the children,” U.S. Judge Philip Halpern said of Richard Leaf, 76, in federal court in White Plains. “He knew exactly what he was doing.”

Leaf was arrested in February 2021 after authorities discovered his computer contained child pornography and nude images of a 15-year-old boy Leaf had met on Skype while posing as a teenager himself.

Halpern's sentence — which includes life of supervised release after Leaf's prison stint — was just above the midpoint of the five-year minimum requested by the defense and the 14 years sought by the government.

In addition to a 34-year career at Louis M. Klein Middle School in Harrison, Leaf called men's and women's basketball games at Iona College for 15 years and was known as the “Voice of the County Center” during his 39 years as the public address announcer for the Section 1 basketball playoffs. For four decades, he was a soccer referee, twice serving as president of the Westchester-Putnam Approved Soccer Officials Association.

Those accomplishments earned him induction into the Westchester Sports Hall of Fame in 2017. But his induction was stripped last year after he pleaded guilty in the criminal case. In a recent letter to the judge asking for leniency, Leaf called his induction the proudest day of his life but said he understood the decision to remove his Hall of Fame plaque “because I have not met the high standards expected of inductees.”

In prepared remarks to the court Tuesday, Leaf apologized to those he had disappointed and thanked two friends he said had stood by him when most others had not. He choked up as he turned to the gallery to thank his sister and brother-in-law for their support and apologized for being such a burden to them these past three years when they should have been enjoying their retirement.

He said he should have known better, but he was not the same man he was when he was arrested. He has undergone therapy and has had “a lot of time to reflect on his behavior, begin to repent and find God.”

“I broke the law. I know there will be consequences,” he told Halpern. “But I ask the court today for compassion and leniency.”

Sentencing guidelines call for a prison term of between 14 and 17 1/2 years. Leaf's lawyer, Michael Burke, said a probation officer's recommendation of a minimum of five years was appropriate because of his client's age, health and lack of criminal history. He suggested any longer sentence could be considered life in prison, and that a lifetime of supervised release rather than additional years in prison would help Leaf's rehabilitation.

“It's not just about deterrence, it's not just about punishment,” Burke said.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Ong asked for a 14-year sentence, saying Leaf’s “predatory behavior warrants a harsh sentence.” She cited aggravating factors, including Leaf’s behavior decades ago at sleepovers with college students — sometimes rubbing his breasts while masturbating — and his obtaining an iPad and searching for pornographic websites in violation of his bail conditions after his arrest.

The day before sentencing, the judge received a letter from one of the four students who sometimes slept at Leaf's house. The man has sued the Harrison school district under New York State's Child Victims Act in recent years.

The letter has not been made public, but Burke said the author acknowledged that Leaf was a good man and hoped he could get the help he needed. While Burke said Leaf admitted to some of his behavior with the student at sleepovers, he denies any allegations of sexual abuse or that Leaf ever provided the student with drugs.

Halpern called it “remarkable” that Leaf ended up where he is, despite his good education at Scarsdale and his distinguished academic career. But he also suggested that the revelations about Leaf's sleepovers with students were evidence of a double life that underscored that his inappropriate behavior long predated his online actions toward teenagers.

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Lina Portman3 days ago

0 3 minutes read

Lina Portman