TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — A youth basketball coach who also teaches middle school is facing a long list of child pornography charges. Police say Timothy Sonier was detected uploading sexual pictures of children.
Witnesses say they saw a long time teacher at Dodge Middle School taken out in handcuffs. Besides this school and other schools within TUSD he had ties to Salpointe Catholic and sports programs throughout this region. The charge: sexual exploitation of a minor—ten counts.
Police charging documents say a cloud storage company detected Sonier uploading suspected child sexual abuse material.
The company alerted authorities. That led Tucson Police to arrest Sonier at Dodge Middle School.
Police say they got a search warrant for his phone. They say they read Sonier his rights, he unlocked his phone, and they saw at least ten files showing children in sexual situations–some of them with adults.
“Anna” asked us not to show her face or use her real name. One of her children is a student at Dodge Middle School.
She’s pleased people are watching the internet for anyone who’d be involved with harmful sexual images.
The charges are not clear on whether Sonier was involved in creating the images. “Anna” hopes that never happened.
“Often these things can progress and hopefully he’s never victimized a child and I’m glad he is now where he can’t be around our children today.”
So what does she tell her children when they see a teacher charged with a crime like sexually exploiting children?
“I tell them 98 percent of the people we know and interact with are wonderful, trustworthy people but a small percentage of people we need to trust our inner feelings and if something makes us feel uncomfortable to trust that and believe in ourselves and our feelings and go to a trusted adult if anything ever makes you feel uncomfortable.”
Before Dodge Middle School, Sonier taught at Dietz K-8 school.
He has been active as an athletic coach especially in women’s basketball—including time as a coach at Salpointe Catholic High School.
Both TUSD and the Catholic Diocese say Sonier passed the background checks required of school workers.
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Craig Smith is a reporter for KGUN 9. With more than 40 years of reporting in cities like Tampa, Houston and Austin, Craig has covered more than 40 Space Shuttle launches and covered historic hurricanes like Katrina, Ivan, Andrew and Hugo. Share your story ideas and important issues with Craig by emailing craig.smith@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook and Twitter.
