OMAHA -- A former newspaper columnist and television entertainment critic was sentenced in court Monday to prison for a term of three to eight years for sexually molesting two young boys in his home.
Peter Citron, who pleaded no contest to two felony counts of sexually assaulting a minor, was also declared a mentally disordered sex offender and ordered to undergo treatment during his prison term.
Citron, 50, was arrested Feb. 22 and charged with fondling an 11-year-old boy and a 12-year-old boy at his home during seperate incidents in 1988 and 1989. Police found a number of homemade videotapes, containing homosexual themes involving young boys, in his home.
In court Monday, he acknowledged he had previously been charged with debaunching a minor in Scarsdale, N.Y., in 1965, but the charges were dropped and he moved to Omaha, where he joined the Sun Newspapers as a columnist and also worked for a local television station.
He was fired by the World-Herald newspaper shortly after his arrest.
District Court Judge Merritt Warren sentenced Citron from 20 months to five years on one count and from 16 months to 36 months on the other. Citron could have received a maximum of five years on each count.
