McIntosh's friend had asked him to show the niece around Penn's campus before she started classes. The tour ended with heavy drinking at a series of University City restaurants and bars. When the woman became ill, prosecutors said, McIntosh took her back to his office, where they smoked marijuana, she passed out, and he forced himself on her.
Means set a hearing for Friday when the prosecutor and McIntosh's attorney will meet Common Pleas Court Judge Pamela Pryor Dembe to schedule resentencing by a new judge.
Neither McIntosh nor the victim was in court. Defense attorney Joel P. Trigiani said Means' chambers contacted him earlier to say that the sentencing would not occur and that neither McIntosh nor his witnesses needed to be present.
Trigiani said he needed to talk with McIntosh about the defense's next step. He would not rule out the possibility that McIntosh might ask to withdraw his no-contest plea.
"I just don't know yet," Trigiani said. "We'll discuss all options. Anything could happen."
Withdrawing a guilty plea is unusual and, because of the lengthy pre-plea colloquy between judge and defendant about the plea's significance, could be difficult to win.
Assistant District Attorney Richard DeSipio said he would oppose an attempt to withdraw the no-contest plea. He said he would urge the new judge to sentence McIntosh to "state prison time of at least 5 1/2 years."
In March 2005, Means, a judge since 1992, was heavily criticized by women's and victims advocates after he sentenced McIntosh, an internationally known researcher into brain trauma, to 11 1/2 to 23 months' house arrest.
Means said a factor in his decision was the societal value of McIntosh's research on treating brain injury at Penn, where he led the Head Injury Research Center at Penn's medical school.
