A once well-regarded soccer coach has been handed a 12-month jail sentence for possessing child abuse material, after a Sydney court heard he has been disowned by family members.<\/p>\n
Tullio ‘Tony’ Giacomo Cigana pleaded guilty to intentionally importing prohibited goods and possessing child abuse material.<\/p>\n
According to a statement of agreed facts, his baggage was examined at Sydney International Airport in August last year when he returned home from living in the Philippines for 12 months.<\/p>\n
Downing Centre Local Court on Wednesday heard he had a collection of 31 files on his phone \u2014 17 images and 14 videos \u2014 which depicted children between the ages of seven and 12.<\/p>\n
The 68-year-old has been in custody on remand for five months.<\/p>\n
Offender ‘completely disowned’<\/p>\n
Defence lawyer Serae Kopra said the offending, while “very serious and shameful”, fell at the lower-mid range of seriousness and told the court the material was for her client’s personal use.<\/p>\n
She said there was no connection between the offender and the children depicted.<\/p>\n
Ms Kopra said the deterrent effect on him since his arrest had been “huge”, including being “completely disowned” by relatives, having his reputation diminished, and an “isolating” experience in custody.<\/p>\n
“He was once someone who was quite well regarded in relation to sports in the community,” she said.<\/p>\n
The Crown prosecutor accepted there was a “limited” number of files and a lack of sophistication in how they were stored, largely concurring with the submissions of the defence.<\/p>\n
Both charges carry a maximum potential penalty of 10 years in prison, with a jurisdictional limit in the Local Court of two years.<\/p>\n
Ms Kopra pushed for a non-custodial sentence to be imposed, or for the court to release Cigana today by setting a non-parole period to coincide with the time he has already served.<\/p>\n
‘Not a victimless crime’<\/p>\n
In sentencing, Deputy Chief Magistrate Sharon Freund told Cigana the possession of child abuse material was not a victimless crime.<\/p>\n
“Every one of those images involves a real child victim,” she told him.<\/p>\n
“If it wasn’t for people like you pursuing these images or videos \u2026 children would not be abused in this way to provide a market.”<\/p>\n
While he received a good behaviour bond for the importation offence, Cigana was handed a maximum 12 months for the child abuse material offence with a non-parole period of seven months.<\/p>\n
It means he will be eligible for parole at the end of March.<\/p>\n
The magistrate applied a 25 per cent discount for Cigana’s early guilty plea and made a small finding of special circumstances because it was his first time in custody, and he had no criminal record.<\/p>\n
After reading a letter of apology, she accepted Cigana was remorseful and there had been “real life consequences” beyond being incarcerated.<\/p>\n
Purchase outlined in messages<\/p>\n
According to the agreed facts, Cigana exchanged messages on messaging service Telegram with a user who went by the name “Mr X” in August 2025 about the purchase of child abuse material.<\/p>\n
The facts say that prosecutors accept he did not specifically request the images he received, but he was sent 17 thumbnail images constituting child abuse material.<\/p>\n
During the conversation, “Mr X” listed various categories of child abuse material and invited Cigana to “choose your package”.<\/p>\n
“Starts from $10, choose what you want,” he said.<\/p>\n
Cigana replied: “Already purchased them before.”<\/p>\n
The facts say the videos were in his phone’s videos folder.<\/p>\n
During an interview with the Australian Border Force (ABF), he initially admitted he had brought “some illegal pornography in” to the country, but declined to answer further questions.<\/p>\n
Under court orders made today, Cigana will also be placed on the child protection register for eight years after his release.<\/p>\n
He will be obliged to make reports to police about his address, work, vehicles he uses, communication devices, passport details and travel, along with any changes to such details.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A once well-regarded soccer coach has been handed a 12-month jail sentence for possessing child abuse material, after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[162836,64,63,34101,198757,198758,5847,4277,241016,241015,85,161246,110922,182874,241012,241014,241013],"class_list":{"0":"post-472461","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-abf","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-child-abuse-material","12":"tag-nsw-court","13":"tag-nsw-crime","14":"tag-nsw-news","15":"tag-nsw-police","16":"tag-soccer-coach-charged","17":"tag-soccer-coach-child-abuse","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-sydney-court","20":"tag-sydney-crime","21":"tag-sydney-news","22":"tag-sydney-soccer-coach","23":"tag-tony-cigana","24":"tag-tullio-tony-giacomo-cigana"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}