A man who had more than 143,000 videos and pictures of girls as young as three-years-old being sexually abused will spend seven years and three months in prison, according to a release Monday.
Nicholas Mazza, 67, of Powder Springs was convicted of distributing child pornography, shortly after he pleaded guilty to the child sex crimes, according a release from to the U.S. Attorney General North District of Georgia. Mazza was a softball coach for teams across Cobb County and a coach for “GeorgiaScout” for girls ages 8 to 17.
“It is incomprehensible that anyone could enjoy watching a child as young as three years old being sexually abused,” U.S. Attorney John Horn said in the release. “Mazza had a massive collection of child pornography, and it is especially disturbing that this defendant worked around children.”
The former softball coach used a peer-to-peer file sharing program to search for and download child pornography to a folder, according to the release. People using the same peer-to-peer file sharing program could access the folder.
In October 2014, Homeland Security Investigations agents downloaded 14 videos Mazza kept in the folder on his computer to track his IP address, which identifies the location of the computer, according to the release. Agents then searched Mazza’s home in November 2014 and took multiple computers, hard drivers and thumb drives, according to the release.
Computer forensics analysis showed that Mazza had more than 143,000 images and videos of child pornography with young girls. The files also included “sadistic abuse” of the children.
“Child pornography is one of the most heinous crimes HSI investigates due to the irrevocable harm it inflicts physically and emotionally upon innocent children,” HSI Atlanta Special Agent in Charge Nick S. Annan said in the release. “This crime is an outrage in all cases; however, it was especially so in this instance given the massive quantity of illegal images recovered and the subject’s proximity to children.”
Mazza will be on supervised released following his sentence. This case was investigated by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations.
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