Robert Tate, former music director at Christ Church, Greenwich, Conn., was sentenced Feb. 21 to five-and-a-half years in federal prison for possessing child pornography. He must also pay a $50,000 fine and participate in sex offender treatment.
 
Mr. Tate was the music director at Christ Church for 34 years, building an internationally recognized music program. Its children’s choir program was considered one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world.
 
Mr. Tate pled guilty to possession of child pornography in January 2007. In court papers filed prior to his Feb. 21 sentencing hearing, prosecutors disclosed that he also had rehired an assistant organist who had been dismissed for sexually assaulting a choirboy and that he failed to tell the authorities when that organist assaulted another choirboy. Police said that Mr. Tate also permitted two sexual predators to remain in the choir at various times.
 
At his sentencing hearing, Mr. Tate said he had struggled all his life with sexual attraction to young boys. He also said that he had been abused, but that it was no excuse for what he had done, and that he was deeply ashamed, according to the Times.
 
Mr. Tate was terminated as music director in 2006 after another church employee discovered child pornography on a church-owned laptop computer last used by Mr. Tate. The case also led to the conviction of a former lawyer for the church. Philip D. Russell was sentenced to six month of home confinement for destroying the laptop computer.
 
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