NEW YORK
The Post-Standard
By Douglass Dowty | ddowty@syracuse.com
on November 05, 2014
Syracuse, NY — A retired priest living in Syracuse will spend 10 years on probation for viewing child pornography on a nun’s office computer at a home for retired priests, a prosecutor said today.
Robert Ours, 65, apologized in court today for what he described as an addiction to porn that ruined his ministry after retiring from leading churches in the Southern Tier.
Prosecutor Jeremy Cali wanted Ours to spend 1 to 3 years in prison. But County Court Judge Joseph Fahey agreed to sentence Ours to probation instead. The priest was also forced to register as a Level 1 sex offender, meaning he is the lowest risk of re-offending.
That was possible because Ours pleaded guilty to all six counts in the indictment, allowing him to negotiate a plea deal directly with the judge.
Cali called all child porn awful, but said there was a range based on the age of the victim, the violence used in the abuse and other factors. The images Ours possessed were not at the worst end of the spectrum, Cali said.
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