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Kayan Frazier, 28, of Somers Point, joined the state Department of Child Protection and Permanency after he was fired as a substitute teacher in an Atlantic City school following an investigation of what authorities said was questionable conduct with male students.
It was unclear how he got the state job, given concerns that district officials had expressed over Frazier having a boy sleep overnight in his bed and texting with a 9-year-old student after school hours.
Detectives with the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office began investigating after Tumblr alerted the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to child porn posted over a period of several weeks.
The investigators found the underage boy in the images in his company during a raid of Frazier's apartment in April 2019, an FBI complaint on file in U.S. District Court in Camden says.
The boy’s mother told investigators she was unaware of what went on between the two, it says.
Before they were finished, investigators had retrieved thousands of images of child sexual abuse on Frazier’s cellphone and other devices – including shots of the boy in the apartment, Acting U.S. Attorney Rachel A. Honig said.
He also posed as a woman online to solicit similar images from boys, investigators said.
Rather than go to trial, Frazier took a deal from the government, pleading guilty on Thursday to one count of sexual exploitation of a child during a virtual hearing before U.S. District Judge Joseph H. Rodriguez in Camden.
Frazier will get no fewer than 15 years -- and no more than 30 years -- in federal prison under the terms of his plea bargain when Rodriguez sentences him on June 8.
Unlike the state, there’s no parole in the federal prison system, so Frazier will have to serve nearly the entire sentence.
He's been held in the Atlantic County Justice Facility since the 2019 raid and will remain in custody until he’s transferred to a federal facility.
Honig credited special agents of FBI, the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office, the Atlantic County Sheriff’s Office, New Jersey State Police and New Jersey Human Services Police with the plea, secured by Assistant U.S. Attorney Diana Vondra Carrig of her Criminal Division in Camden.
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