ABOVE: Rich Leaf announcing players during Section 1 Class-AA girls’ basketball game at the County Center in White Plains on Feb. 28, 2018/. PHOTO: Carucha L. Meuse/Journal News

‘He took advantage of the most vulnerable people in our society: children,’ U.S. District Judge Philip Halpern said of 76-year-old Richard Leaf in White Plains federal court. ‘He knew exactly what he was doing.’

By Jonathan Bandler | The Journal News

An acclaimed teacher and sports announcer whose arrest on child pornography charges three years ago shocked the Harrison school and Westchester athletics communities was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in federal prison by a judge who called his crimes “the intentional exploitation” of teenagers.

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

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

Halpern’s sentence — which includes lifetime supervised release after Leaf’s prison stint — was just higher than the midpoint of the minimum 5-year term the defense sought and the 14 years requested by the government.

In addition to a 34-year career at Harrison’s Louis M. Klein Middle School, 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’ for 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 landed him in the Westchester Sports Hall of Fame in 2017. But his induction was stripped away last year after he pleaded guilty in the criminal case.

In a recent letter to the judge seeking leniency, Leaf called his induction the proudest day of his life but said he understood the decision to remove his plaque from the Hall “for I have not upheld the high standards required of inductees.”

In prepared remarks in court Tuesday, Leaf apologized to those he had disappointed and thanked two friends he said had stuck 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 on them these past three years when they should have been enjoying retirement.

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

“I broke the law. I know there are consequences,” he told Halpern. “But I’m asking the court for compassion and leniency today.”

Sentencing guidelines called for between 14 and 17 1/2 years in prison. Leaf’s lawyer, Michael Burke, said a probation officer’s recommendation for the minimum five years was appropriate because of his client’s age, health and lack of criminal history.

He suggested any longer term could be considered a life sentence and lifelong supervised release rather than more years in prison would aid Leaf’s rehabilitation.

“It’s not all about deterrence; its not all about punishment,” Burke said.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Ong sought the 14-year term, saying Leaf’s “predatory conduct warrants a serious sentence.”

She cited aggravating factors that included Leaf’s behavior decades ago on sleepovers with students — rubbing their chests while sometimes masturbating — and in obtaining an iPad and seeking out pornographic websites in violation of his bail conditions following his arrest.

On the eve of sentencing the judge received a letter from one of the four students who sometimes slept over at Leaf’s home. That man sued the Harrison school district under New York’s Child Victims Act in recent years.

The letter was not made public but Burke said that writer acknowledged that Leaf is a good man and he was hopeful he could get the help he needs.

While Burke said Leaf has admitted some of the behavior with that student on the sleepovers, he denies any allegation of sexual abuse or that Leaf ever provided drugs for the student.

Halpern found it “remarkable” that Leaf would end up where he did despite the good upbringing he had in Scarsdale and the stellar academic career he led.

But he also suggested that the revelations of Leaf’s sleepovers with students spoke of a double life that underscored that his inappropriate conduct long pre-dated his trolling teenage boys on the internet. ##