BROADWAY ACTOR BARBOUR SENTENCED TO PRISON
LATEST: Broadway star JAMES BARBOUR has been sentenced to 60 days in jail after pleading guilty to groping a 15-year-old girl in his dressing room.
The 41-year-old appeared at New York’s Manhattan Superior Court on Friday (29Feb08) for sentencing on two misdemeanour counts of endangering the welfare of a minor.
At a hearing in January (08), Barbour confessed that he lured a high school student back to his dressing room in 2001 after a teacher arranged for her and her parents to see him in a production of Jane Eyre.
The actor - who also played the Beast in Beauty and the Beast - revealed he touched the aspiring actress sexually. He then arranged for her to visit him at home, where he touched her again.
Barbour, who admitted to Judge Micki Scherer that he knew the girl was underage, agreed to enter a guilty plea in a deal with prosecutors which avoids his name being added to the American sex offenders’ register.
Had he opposed the deal, he faced up to four years in jail and counts of criminal sex act in the third degree.
After Friday’s hearing, his victim - now 22 - said she is pleased at the prison term and hopes it "will prevent him from even thinking of touching another child again".
Movie & Entertainment News provided by World Entertainment News Network (www.wenn.com)
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