Prof gets jail in Web sex sting
A former University of Hawaii professor of electrical engineering will spend a year in jail followed by five years' probation for arranging to have sex with a state investigator posing on the Internet as a 15-year-old girl.
A state judge sentenced Marc Fossorier, 43, yesterday for electronic enticement of a child in the first degree, a Class B felony.
Circuit Judge Derrick Chan gave Fossorier until today to turn himself in. He had been free on $50,000 bail.
Fossorier apologized to his colleagues and friends, many of whom filled the courtroom yesterday, his family and the court for the "terrible mistake" he made.
"At the time of the arrest, I was extremely depressed and clearly lacking judgment," he said.
Police arrested Fossorier Oct. 29 at the McDonald's in Pearl Kai, where he had arranged to meet the presumed teenage girl after communicating with a state investigator.
He pleaded guilty to the charge Nov. 15 and resigned soon after from his faculty position at UH.
Fossorier, a French citizen, received his master's degree and doctorate in electrical engineering at UH. He started teaching there in 1996 as an assistant professor of electrical engineering. He became an associate professor in 1999 and a full professor in 2004.
In 1998 he received the National Science Foundation Career Award given to promising young faculty. In 2002 he received the UH Board of Regents Medal for Excellence in Research and in 2006 received the school's IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Fellow Award for his contributions to coding and decoding methods.