NATION : Educator Admits Obscene Calls

FAIRFAX, Va. — Richard E. Berendzen, who has resigned as American University president, pleaded guilty today to two misdemeanor charges of making obscene telephone calls from his university office.

Fairfax County General District Court Judge J. Conrad Waters Jr. sentenced Berendzen to 30 days in jail on each charge, but suspended all the jail time, provided the Harvard-trained educator stays out of trouble for one year.

“I deeply regret all of this,” Berendzen told the judge in his only comment. Commonwealth’s Atty. Robert Horan said Berendzen received the standard sentence.

Berendzen, 51, resigned April 8 as president of the Washington, D.C., university, saying he was exhausted. He was charged May 11 with two misdemeanor counts of making indecent calls to a day-care provider who is married to a Fairfax County police officer.

Fairfax County police filed the charges a week after Berendzen left Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore where he was treated at the Sexual Disorders Clinic.