Former principal gets 2 years for child porn

MEDIA Weeks before his sentencing Thursday for child-pornography possession, former Delaware County middle-school principal Troy Czukoski walked into a children's locker room during a youth hockey tournament - a decision a federal prosecutor described as "unfathomable."

Czukoski, who said he was helping his 7-year-old daughter maneuver to the bathroom while wearing her goalie equipment, told Judge Legrome D. Davis that he was in the room for no longer than three or four minutes and that no children were changing there.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Rotella noted that Czukoski had been ordered to avoid all unsupervised contact with children. She said Czukoski's actions demonstrated that he could not be trusted to remain free.

"This was the time he should have been on his very best behavior," she said.

Davis sentenced Czukoski to two years in federal prison and 10 years of supervised release, telling the 43-year-old married father of three that as someone responsible for protecting children, he was guilty of "the most fundamental violation of his social duty."

Joe Green, Czukoski's attorney, said after the hearing that the family was disappointed but accepted the judge's decision.

Czukoski, of Exton and formerly the principal of Springton Lake Middle School in Media, pleaded guilty in May to possessing between 150 and 300 images of child pornography.

Between 2008 and 2001, prosecutors said, Czukoski made multiple purchases from a website that sells child porn, and when authorities turned up at his home last fall, they seized several DVDs, flash drives, and CDs containing images of children.

Czukoski had been at Springton Lake, a school with nearly 1,000 students, only for 14 weeks.

Previously he worked in the Phoenixville, West Chester, and Coatesville school districts. Czukoski was never accused of inappropriate contact with children, authorities said.

Czukoski, who attended Thursday's hearing with his wife, parents, colleagues, and members of his church, cried and wiped his eyes through much of the proceedings.

His attorney sought to argue that Czukoski should be viewed as a low-risk offender when compared with others in federal prison. He presented doctors who testified that Czukoski has been in rigorous therapy for a year and that he was the victim of repeated sexual assaults at a young age.

"I am in this situation today because of my actions and my actions alone," Czukoski told the judge. "I let down the children in these videos. It was my job to be a child advocate and help kids who were abused. And yet, inexplicably to myself, I contributed to the exploitation of children."

Davis was unconvinced, particularly by Czukoski's assertion that although school administrators are tasked with reporting suspected cases of abuse, he never thought about the children who were in the videos he watched.

After the hearing, Rotella said she thought the sentence was appropriate.

"I'm glad he's going to jail," she said.