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JANETTE NEUWAHLSteven Koufogazos, who worked at Madeira Beach Middle School, is sentenced to two to four years for trying to sexually assault a teenager in Massachusetts.
PALM HARBOR - A former Madeira Beach Middle School administrator and North Pinellas resident was sentenced Friday to up to four years in a Massachusetts prison for attempting to sexually assault a student in 1994.
Steven Koufogazos, who worked as an assistant principal at Madeira Beach Middle for part of the 2002-03 school year was sentenced to two to four years in the Massachusetts Correctional Institute in Walpole. The emotionally charged case was decided by a jury that found Koufogazos guilty of trying to sexually assault a 15-year-old boy whom he tutored in 1994.
Koufogazos resigned from his job with Pinellas County schools in February 2003. Since then, he has worked as a bank teller while living with his wife and two children in Palm Harbor, according to reports from the Lowell Sun in Lowell, Mass.
The charge means that if Koufogazos returns to his Palm Harbor residence, under Florida law, he will have to register as a sex offender.
Koufogazos left his job as an assistant principal at Madeira Beach Middle on Feb. 18, 2003, because of "medical issues," said Ron Stone, spokesman for Pinellas County Schools. Stone said Koufogazos was hired by Pinellas County schools on July 31, 2002, and was 36 at the time.
Before that, Koufogazos had worked at James Daley Middle School in Lowell and tutored at the Huntington Learning Center in Chelmsford, Mass.
It was while he was tutoring a 15-year-old boy at the center that Koufogazos invited the boy over to his home and then asked the teen to perform oral sex on him, the victim told authorities. The victim, who is now 24, told his father about it in 2002 because memories of the incident haunted him, the Lowell Sun reported.
The boy sent an e-mail in late 2002 to a teacher at Osceola Middle School, trying to contact Koufogazos. The teacher forwarded the e-mail to the school district's office of professional standards, Stone said. Apparently, the victim tried to contact both Koufogazos and Pinellas school officials when he learned that Koufogazos was still working at a school.
One of the anonymous e-mails read: "If he is employed by the school system he may be a danger to the children. . . . I only want to be sure that other children are not in harm's way."
Pinellas school officials began investigating Koufogazos in February 2003 for falsifying information on his job application about how he ended his previous position in Massachusetts, Stone said.
"We were more concerned down here with the fact that he falsified his application," said Stone. "In the application, we ask if a person was nonrenewed from contract, and even though he was, he wrote that he was not nonrenewed from his previous employer, so we started asking questions, and based on our investigation, I guess he decided to resign."
The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office began to investigate Koufogazos in fall 2002, based on the e-mails and the victim's contact with the Lowell Police Department, said Emily LaGrassa, press secretary for the district attorney's office of Middlesex County, Mass.
Koufogazos was summoned by a grand jury to appear in Massachusetts Superior Court about a month after he resigned from Madeira Beach Middle School.
Koufogazos' lawyer, Eugene McCann, could not be reached for comment on Tuesday, but he told the Times in a May 2003 interview that he thought the victim's claim was not credible.
"The victim had very serious alcoholic problems," McCann said. "He was a drunk with blackouts and fantasies."
LaGrassa declined to comment on the victim's credibility.
On Friday, the jury found Koufogazos guilty and sentenced him the same day, said LaGrassa. Koufogazos will be eligible for parole in two years, but could remain in prison for up to four, she said.
"We're happy (about the verdict), and we hope that this brings some level of comfort to the victim and his family," LaGrassa said. "Now we'll be able to make sure that Mr. Koufogazos doesn't harm any more children."