Westbury clown accused of having kiddie porn

Alexander Zacarias often worked as a clown at children's birthday parties, police said.

Which is alarming, police said, since they arrested the Westbury man Tuesday evening on charges of promoting sexual performance of a child -- police saying Zacarias used home computers to "receive and distribute hundreds of images" of child pornography and child erotica.

Zacarias, 40, of Sherman Street, Westbury, was arrested Tuesday by detectives from the special Internet Child Exploitation Section of the Nassau County Police Department's Crimes Against Property Squad for promoting the sexual performance of a child and the possession of sexual performance of a child that police said occurred in Westbury on Dec. 3. Police said they could provide no additional details on the initial incident -- or the extent of Zacarias' involvement in it -- on Wednesday.

But police confirmed the arrest of Zacarias was the result of an executed search warrant at his home, where they said they seized "numerous desktop and notebook computers."

It was unclear, however, whether police knew before the arrest that Zacarias worked as a part-time clown of children's birthday parties -- or whether they learned of that after he was arrested.

Zacarias was charged with nine felony counts of promoting sexual performance of a child and nine felony counts of possession of sexual performance of a child.

He is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday in First District Court in Hempstead.

By BY JOHN VALENTI
Posted Wednesday, April 16, 2008

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