Ex-professor at Naval Academy sentenced for molestation

By Andrea F. Siegel

A retired Naval Academy professor was sentenced Friday to serve five years in prison for sexually molesting an adolescent relative and, as expected, did not apologize for a year of sexual assaults that the judge called "just horrific."

Patrick Ryan Harrison, 66, former chair of the Naval Academy's computer science department, told Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge J. Michael Wachs that the allegations that date to 1994 and 1995 cost him family relationships, and that "I will continue to try to rebuild relationships."

The victim, now in her 20s, said she did not expect him to apologize but was still disappointed that he spoke only about himself in court and "that there was no apology to me and any member of my family."

In a statement in court, the woman said she was emotionally tormented for years by his sexual assaults -- which she kept secret for 14 years -- and that she told her family about it when she realized that he could do the same thing to his grandchildren. He told her family it was an affair.

She acknowledged that he did nice things for her over the years, but said they were accompanied by abuse that has left her with emotional problems, flashbacks and sleepless nights.

"Now it is time for the world to see him for who he is: a child sex offender," she said.

Harrison's plea in July was structured so that he did not admit guilt but acknowledged there was enough evidence to convict him of molesting her when she was 12 years old and he was 52. It also capped the prison sentence at five years. He will be on supervised probation for five years after that.

Now of Hot Springs Village, Ark., Harrison was a professor at the Naval Academy from 1976 until his retirement in 2003.