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Somers resident Richard Leaf, age 76, who is well-known in Westchester for announcing Section 1 boys and girls basketball tournaments for more than three decades, was sentenced on Tuesday, July 2 to a decade in prison for receiving child pornography, according to federal US District Court documents.
According to federal prosecutors, Leaf, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2017 and is a retired social studies teacher who worked in the Harrison School District, posed as a teenager named "Alex Bronson" to communicate with a minor who he thought was 15 years old over the Skype platform.
During the communications, Leaf received a video of the minor masturbating in the shower in addition to a fully nude picture of him in his bedroom.
Authorities also later found almost a dozen images and videos containing child pornography on Leaf's computer.
To communicate with minors over Skype and the online chatroom website Chat Avenue, Leaf created several fake accounts with usernames such as alex bronson; sportsboi.15; alex15; and runnerboi.14.
In addition to serving as the voice of the basketball tournaments, Leaf was also known for announcing Iona College men's and women's basketball, Scarsdale and Mamaroneck varsity basketball games, and numerous tournaments and serving as president of the Westchester-Putnam Approved Soccer Officials Association.
Leaf has since been removed from the Westchester Sports Hall of Fame, according to County Executive George Latimer.
He pleaded guilty to a count of receiving child pornography in June 2023.
If he completes his sentence, Leaf will also serve a lifetime of supervised release.
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