Ex-Teacher Who Created Music Video Of Teen Boy Using Bathroom At Theater Camp Pleads Guilty To Child Porn
PITMAN, N.J. (CBS) -- A former Vineland elementary school teacher who used a hidden camera to create a music video of a boy using the bathroom at a theater camp pleaded guilty to manufacturing child pornagraphy. Thirty-nine-year-old Thomas Guzzi Jr., of Pitman, faces up to 17 years in prison after admitting to hiding a camera in the camp's bathroom to record teenage boys, the New Jersey Attorney General's Office says.
Guzzi was a fifth-grade teacher at Winslow Elementary School and an adviser and stage manager for youth productions at the school the Broadway Theatre in Pitman.
According to the attorney general's office, Guzzi admitted capturing images and videos of teenage boys urinating in restrooms at the summer theater camp in 2015. Prosecutors say he created a music video of one boy urinating and edited it together with other video recordings of the teen dancing in rehearsals.
"Like many child predators, Guzzi sought out positions of trust in which children were placed under his supervision," said Attorney General Gurbir Grewal. "He then callously violated that trust by photographing and videotaping young boys for his sexual gratification, including a vulnerable student at a school where he taught. With this guilty plea, Guzzi is facing justice for so heinously betraying the innocent children who were entrusted to his care."
Guzzi was initially arrested on Feb. 19, 2016 following an investigation.
