Less time for Navy doc's illicit tapes

The military has reduced a prison sentence for a Navy doctor convicted of using a hidden camera to record Naval Academy midshipmen having sex, a Navy spokesman said Monday.

Cmdr. Kevin Ronan, sentenced to three years and 10 months, will serve two years if he is a model prisoner, said Guy Schein, a spokesman for the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery in Washington, where Ronan was assigned.

A military jury in November convicted Rowan of conduct unbecoming an officer, illegal wiretapping and obstruction of justice. The jury gave him the 46-month term in the Navy brig and ordered his dismissal from the military.

Vice Adm. Adam M. Robinson, the Navy's surgeon general, decided last week that two years in prison was adequate, Schein said.

Ronan's lawyer, William Ferris, said he was disappointed the entire sentence was not remitted. Ferris said he is still working on an appeal to the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals.

Ronan is being confined in the U.S. Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, S.C.

Navy prosecutors alleged that as early as May 2006, Ronan used a hidden camera to tape male midshipmen having sex with girlfriends or masturbating while they stayed in guest bedrooms at his Annapolis home. The midshipmen were there as part of an academy program that places students in private homes during their free time.

Ronan denied making the recordings during testimony at his trial, but acknowledged he bought an air purifier with a hidden camera. Ronan's defense was that the tapes were made by midshipmen in an effort to extort money from him.

Before he was assigned to the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, Ronan ran the academy's student health clinic for four years until 2006. He was also a doctor for several Navy sports teams.