'Father of gene therapy' jailed for child abuse

LOS ANGELES, Saturday, (AFP)

A world-renowned US geneticist called the "father of gene therapy" was sentenced to 14 years in prison in a Los Angeles court on Friday for molesting a girl during martial arts lessons.

William French Anderson, 70, whose work in the field of genetics has received global acclaim, was convicted last July of sexually abusing a girl under 14 as well as three counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a child.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor said he had noted the glowing references attesting to Anderson's character from prominent names in the medical field, including a Nobel Prize winner.

But Pastor said: "I wish these people had heard the evidence I heard.

"The over-riding consideration is to do justice, not to make headlines, not to pander and not to gain acceptance. It is to do justice."

Anderson's conduct toward the victim had been "egregious", Pastor said, describing the scientist as "intellectually arrogant."

"Dr. Anderson is brilliant, sophisticated, worldly and he is a manager and administrator used to making tough decisions. He made the conscious decision to continue to engage in the most reprehensible conduct," he said.

"One can't over-emphasize the sophistication Dr. Anderson exhibited to follow through with his nefarious goals," he said. The wealthy scientist had preyed on "the perfect victim," whom he described as a vulnerable, "impressionable" girl "living in a foreign land."

Anderson, a runner-up for Time magazine's prestigious Man of the Year award in 1994, was accused of sexually abusing the victim, who is now an adult, over a period of several years beginning when she was nine or 10.

They met when the girl and her family moved to California from China and her mother began working for Anderson at the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine, where he was director of Gene Therapy Laboratories.

Prosecutors alleged Anderson molested the girl while he taught karate to her, and accused him of performing "medical exams" on her while she was naked.

Anderson's defense lawyers claimed the girl's family was trying to extort Anderson by alleging abuse when in fact, they argued, Anderson was guilty only of pressuring the child to do well in school.

In a tape-recorded conversation played to jurors during last year's month-long trial, the girl is heard confronting Anderson about the sex abuse. Anderson tells the girl: "I just did it, just something in me was just evil."

Asked in court about his response, Anderson said he thought she was referring to the emotional abuse he had inflicted on her. "Pressuring her, causing her to crash, ruining her life, that was evil," he said.

Anderson is described as the "father of gene therapy" because of his quest for genetically delivered cures for diseases including cancer, heart disease and genetic illnesses.

The prize-winning scientist led the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute team that in 1990 pioneered the world's first experiment in human gene therapy, the attempt to replace or fix damaged genes that has so far met with mixed results.

The original experiment was on a four-year-old girl with a rare genetic disease that prevents children from developing their own immune systems.

Anderson was one of four scientists seen as the driving forces behind the 13-year US Human Genome Project, which ended in 2003 with the completion of the human genetic sequence.