Crime & Safety
Ex-Springton Lake Principal Gets 2 Years on Child Porn Charges
Troy Czukoski, who pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography in May, was sentenced on Thursday.
The former Springton Lake Middle School principal, who pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography in May, after an investigation by the U.S. Postal Service was sentenced to two years in prison on Thursday.
Troy Czukoski, 43, of Exton, was sentenced to two years in prison, 10 years of supervised release and the payment of fines for possessing more than 150, but less than 300, images of children engaging in sexually explicit conduct, according to the Delaware County Daily Times.
Czukoski faced a maximum possible sentence of 10 years in prison. He will report to prison on Dec. 30, according to the Delco Times.
Weeks before he was sentenced and ordered to avoid any unsupervised contact with children, Czukoski walked into a children's locker room during a youth hockey tournament to help his 7-year-old daughter who was wearing hockey equipment, according to philly.com.
Czukoski, who testified that he himself was a victim of childhood sexual abuse, told the court Thursday that, "I let down the children in these videos. It was my job to be a child advocate and help kids who were abused," according to philly.com.
Czukoski was identified through a website that sells child porn and website records showed that he had made purchases from 2008 through 2011, according to the United States Attorney's Office, and a warrant was then executed on his home, during which Czukoski confessed that he had purchased the pornographic content over the Internet.
He also directed authorities to his hiding spot, which was a paint can hidden under insulation in the attic, where numerous CDs and DVDs and two flash drives that contained images and video of child porn were found, according to the United States Attorney's Office.
Czukoski, who was hired as the Springton Lake Middle School principal on July 1, 2012, was placed on administrative leave in October 2012 following the Rose Tree Media School District's notification of the federal investigation. When he was formally charged in March the Rose Tree Media Board of School Directors accepted his resignation effective March 5.
The case was investigated by the United States Postal Inspection Service and was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Michelle Rotella.
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