The former director of literacy for the Valley View School District was sentenced Thursday to three years of probation for trying to set up a sexual encounter with a purported minor he met online.<\/p>\n
Christopher W. Mazzino, 59, of Springbrook Twp., previously pleaded guilty to attempted dissemination of sexual material to a minor for attempting to meet up with a 15-year-old boy for sex in 2021.<\/p>\n
In fact, Mazzino encountered Musa Harris, the Luzerne County Predator Catcher.<\/p>\n
In court Thursday, Mazzino apologized for his conduct and said he is grateful for the support he has received from family and friends.<\/p>\n
\u201cI cannot say more than I am sorry for what I\u2019ve done \u2014 truly sorry,\u201d Mazzino said.<\/p>\n
Assistant District Attorney Brian Coleman did not object to a probationary sentence and left the penalty to the discretion of the court.<\/p>\n
Mazzino\u2019s attorney, Curt M. Parkins, described Mazzino as a respectful and thoughtful person who is at low risk for re-offending.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this is someone you\u2019re never going to see again,\u201d Parkins said, describing Mazzino\u2019s conduct as a \u201cblip.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty serious \u2018blip\u2019,\u201d Luzerne County Judge Michael T. Vough interjected.<\/p>\n
However, the judge noted that it did appear Mazzino had lived an \u201cexemplary life\u201d prior to his arrest in 2021, and that he had had no problems since.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you learned your lesson in a serious way,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n
Vough imposed a sentence of three years of probation and ordered Mazzino to pay $100 in restitution to the Kingston Police Department.<\/p>\n
The judge said he did not oppose supervision of Mazzino\u2019s probation being transferred to Lackawanna County, where he resides.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former director of literacy for the Valley View School District was sentenced Thursday to three years of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[46,182,803,139,28,178,180,179,181],"class_list":["post-106789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-courts","tag-local-news","tag-luzerne-county","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-top-stories-stt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}