Music fest drops Peter Yarrow over decades-old ‘indecent liberties’ sentence

In this July 20, 2014, file photo, singer-songwriter Peter Yarrow, of the 1960’s era musical trio “Peter Paul and Mary,” claps and encourages the audience to sing along during a memorial tribute concert for folk icon and civil rights activist Pete Seeger at Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park in New York.

NEW YORK — A music festival has disinvited folk singer Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary over his 1970 jail sentence for indecent liberties with a 14-year-old girl.

The Press and Sun Bulletin of Binghamton reports that board members of the Colorscape Chenango Arts Festival in upstate New York cited negative reaction to Yarrow on social media in their decision to remove Yarrow from the festival’s lineup.

The 81-year-old Yarrow was to appear Sept. 8 with a performance painter. A replacement has not been announced.

Yarrow was sentenced to three months in jail over a 1969 episode in which the 14-year-old and her 17-year-old sister went to his hotel seeking an autograph and he answered the door naked. Former President Jimmy Carter pardoned Yarrow in 1981.

A representative for Yarrow says the singer accepts the decision.