JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Tommy Hazouri Jr., son of Jacksonville City Councilman and former Mayor Tommy Hazouri, pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court to one count of distributing child pornography.
Hazouri Jr., 41, faces a sentence of five to 20 years in federal prison, a potential life term of supervised release and a fine.
A sentencing date was not set, pending a pre-sentencing investigation, which is standard.
According to court documents, on March 26, 2020, a user of an online social media messaging app, later identified as Hazouri Jr., uploaded and distributed four videos depicting children being sexually abused to several users in a public chat room.
On May 1, 2020, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office received a cybertip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
According to court documents, JSO obtained search warrants for Hazouri’s app account, which contained 19 images and 45 videos depicting sexually explicit conduct involving children, and for his email account, which contained “several photos depicting child erotica.”
On Aug. 6, 2020, Hazouri’s iPhone and two laptops were seized from his Jacksonville Beach home after a search warrant was issued. According to prosecutors, forensic examination of the iPhone revealed that it contained 123 images and three videos depicting child sexual abuse. Prosecutors said the three videos on Hazouri’s iPhone appeared to depict the same content as three of the videos distributed on the social media app.
According to court documents, there were non-exploitative pictures of children, “many of whom were pictured in a school-type setting,” and some of the photos contained metadata that traced them back to Mayport Coastal Sciences Elementary School, where Hazouri was a second grade teacher at the time.
On Aug. 19, 2020, Hazouri Jr. was arrested on 25 counts of child pornography.
The case was later shifted to federal court, and Hazouri Jr. changed his plea from not guilty to guilty on Tuesday.
Hazouri Jr.’s attorney, Hank Coxe, wanted the record to note in court Tuesday that there was no proof of Hazouri Jr. physically touching children, but that he had distributed images.
Coxe did not comment after court.
Hazouri Jr. is currently being held in the Baker County Detention Center.
Hazouri Jr. began working for Duval County Public Schools as a substitute in 2003. He was hired full-time at Kernan Trail Elementary in 2006 and taught at three different grade levels over the next 10 years. He transferred to Englewood Elementary in 2018 and to Mayport Elementary in 2019.