Nobel Winner Admits Sexually Abusing Boy

A scientist who won a Nobel Prize studying disease in far-off lands admitted in court Tuesday that he sexually abused a boy he had brought to Maryland from Micronesia.

Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, 73, who built a remarkable scientific career working on degenerative diseases of the brain, pleaded guilty to two counts of child abuse. He will serve nine months to one year in the county jail and spend five years on probation.

Gajdusek brought more than 50 youngsters, mostly boys, from native cultures in the western Pacific region to live with him in the United States over the course of decades.