Melanie Morgan

San Francisco liberal talker Bernie Ward of KGO Radio waves the surrender flag in his on-going battle with federal prosecutors, who charged him with one count of transmitting child pornography. (Published reports indicate that there were many more images of children being sexually abused that Ward transmitted, but was not charged with.)

RadioEqualizer has the story here.

I-Team investigator Dan Noyes from my  former sister station ABC7 News has a riveting report on the complaints of sexual misconduct dating back to Ward's days as a former Catholic priest here.

Warning: traffic is so heavy that the site has crashed several times.

I have known Bernie Ward for over 20 years.We worked together for 5 or 6 years.

I liked Bernie for about one year.

That year would have been 1995, when he and his wife dined with me and my husband in Marin County, Calif.

(Full disclosure: my husband Jack Swanson was Bernie Ward's boss.)

It was an entertaining evening, and Bernie and I had a pleasant relationship.

But things began changing as I saw Bernie close up, and I did not like the real Bernie Ward.

The way he treated his family, for one thing, screaming at his children in public for seemingly minor misbehaviors on the many occasions he brought them to KGO/KSFO radio functions, and to our home. 

Since I became a conservative almost 15 years ago, Bernie has attacked me relentlessly, lying about my positions on the national and local airwaves, with poisonous personal attacks. I rarely responded.

But I did refuse to appear with him in split/screen on any number of cable TV shows. I told producers that if they booked him with me, I would walk off the air.

There was a darkness of his soul that repelled me.

Now he is about to become a convicted felon, and serve many years in jail for transmitting images of children involved in sexual positionings with each other, as well as adults, and fantasizing about sex with his own children. (See the I-Team police report at www.abc7.com, if you can stomach it.)

I am not celebrating Bernie Ward's demise. But I am relieved that the rest of the world has recognized evil among us.

I honor the excellent work of the federal prosecutors in Northern California who brought this case to a successful conclusion.

I hope that Judge Vaughn Walker will sentence him to the maximum penalty and not be swayed by Bernie Ward's celebrity.

And I will pray every night for his wife and each of his four children, some of whom I have known since they were babies, and that they can heal from this abject horror.