2d time, trauma expert given jail

Once among the world's preeminent brain-trauma researchers, Tracy McIntosh left a Philadelphia courtroom yesterday in custody to begin a 31/2- to 7-year prison term for the 2002 sexual assault of a University of Pennsylvania graduate student.

McIntosh, 54, of Media, rocked back as if hit by a gust of wind when Common Pleas Court Judge Pamela Pryor Dembe imposed the sentence. Moments later, Dembe stunned him again by refusing to let him stay free on bail pending appeal.

McIntosh, a slight, boyish-looking man with a shock of brushed-back gray hair, paused, turned around and tried to mouth some words to his wife, Cyd, sitting in the crowded courtroom.

"Come on!" said a court officer who was standing in the open doorway of a white cinderblock hall that led to the courthouse holding cells. When McIntosh paused again, the officer repeated, "Come on!" and the former Penn medical school professor strode through the door and out of view.

Earlier, McIntosh, who had begun the hearing with an unexpected and unsuccessful attempt to withdraw his no-contest plea to sexual assault, read a 15-minute statement apologizing to the victim and her family, his family and friends and the Penn community.

"I accept responsibility for my shameful behavior here and the incalculable pain I've put you through," McIntosh said, turning to face the victim in the audience. "I violated your trust."

Describing his personal rebirth since 2002, McIntosh told the judge: "I'm not a monster. I'm not a sociopath."

Dembe cited McIntosh's history of philandering and of sexually harassing women who worked for him, a pattern capped by the 2002 assault of a young woman who was the niece of his college roommate.

"I can think of no circumstance in which it was appropriate to victimize a child who was the next best thing to a relative," Dembe told McIntosh. "It was breathtaking in its vileness. It was vile. You went so far beyond the pale."

This was the second time McIntosh, who has been married 25 years and has two adult daughters, has been sentenced. In 2004, Judge Rayford A. Means sentenced McIntosh to 111/2 to 23 months of house arrest, partly in consideration of his reputation and research in treating brain injuries.

District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham, however, appealed to state Superior Court, which last April vacated the sentence as too lenient and ordered resentencing. Judge Means later disqualified himself because of the public controversy, and Dembe replaced him.

Earlier, the victim, now 28, spent an emotional 15 minutes testifying about the assault's impact on her and her family.

At times weeping and seething, she described the Sept. 6, 2002, incident, her anger at McIntosh's original 2004 sentence, and the agony of waiting through three years of appeals and reliving the sentencing.

"I implore you to set this right for myself and for my family and for all women out there . . . to know that rape is a freaking crime," she told Dembe.

She called McIntosh "incredibly sick."

"I was a drunk, incapacitated 23-year-old girl," she said.

The woman's uncle - McIntosh's roommate at Williams College in Massachusetts in the mid-1970s and godfather to one of McIntosh's daughters - testified of the pride he felt when McIntosh, then the celebrated head of his own Penn research lab, agreed to show his niece around campus before she began graduate work in veterinary medicine.

"I trusted him like a brother," he told Dembe, adding, "I've never had a betrayal like that in my life."

The assault occurred shortly after the victim arrived at Penn. The campus tour led to dinner and then a long night of heavy drinking, during which she became ill and vomited in public.

McIntosh admitted he took her back to his campus office, where prosecutors say he gave her marijuana and then had sex with her while she was barely conscious. He was charged with rape and related crimes but later pleaded no-contest to a lesser count of sexual assault.

Defense attorney Joel P. Trigiani urged the judge to reimpose the original house-arrest sentence. He said McIntosh's career and reputation are ruined. Recently, one man who recognized McIntosh in a local Starbucks spat on him, Trigiani said.

Trigiani presented six witnesses, including McIntosh's pastor. All told of McIntosh's remorse and rehabilitation, including 1,000 hours of community service picking up trash in North Philadelphia.

But some also testified that, based on their talks with McIntosh, they did not believe the encounter resulted in penetration. And one said she believed the victim was complicit.

"She feels she is a victim, and he has said there was no sex. There was drinking and she got sick and that's what it was," said Deborah B. Sloman, a neighbor of the McIntoshes for 15 years.

"I would ask my daughters if they did anything to contribute to it," Sloman testified.

"Why don't you just tell [the victim] that it was her fault," retorted Assistant District Attorney Richard DeSipio.

"I would ask them, 'Did you do anything that could have contributed to this? Did you lead him on?' " Sloman replied. "We know that women sometimes lead men on."

At this point the victim, who had been sitting in the audience with her parents and uncle, sobbed out a cry of "No!" and left the courtroom.