A Weatherly man admitted in Carbon County court on Tuesday to possessing child pornography.

Nicholas Peter Hadzick, 42, pleaded guilty before Judge Joseph J. Matika to two counts of child pornography, both felony 3s. Matika told Hadzick under state sentencing guidelines he faces a minimum prison term of somewhere between 21 and 27 months up to seven years.

Hadzick was arrested by the state police computer crimes unit on Oct. 8, 2020.

According to the affidavit of probable cause filed by trooper Nikos Bilianis at 9 p.m. July 19, 2020, Synchronoss Technologies Inc. made a report to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that they became aware of seven photographs being uploaded to their server depicting child pornography by a user, Hadzick. The CyberTip number indicated that the seven photographs were then uploaded to the Synchronoss Technologies Inc. servers by a cellphone number.

West Hazleton Borough police filed a subpoena to the telephone number’s provider, Verizon, which utilizes cloud storage through Synchronoss Technologies Inc.

Synchronoss Technologies Inc. provided an Internet Protocol address, which matched the cloud storage account associated with the telephone number for the CyberTip Bilianis received.

At 9 a.m. Sept. 17, Bilianis conducted surveillance of the apartment in the 200 block of Carbon Street, where Hadzick was sitting outside on his steps in front of his apartment on his cellphone.

Later that day Bilianis obtained from the state Attorney General’s office a subpoena for subscriber information on the IP address for Atlantic Broadband Inc., which responded that the account subscriber was Hadzick.

At 6:05 a.m. Oct. 8, a search warrant was served on the residence. Bilianis interviewed Hadzick, who admitted to ownership of devices recovered on scene and acknowledged that was his cellphone that matched what was in the CyberTip and Synchronoss Technologies Inc. account. The devices contained child pornography.

Inside Hadzick’s room was drug paraphernalia, including glassine wax paper baggies containing unknown substances.

Hadzick was originally charged with five counts of child pornography and one count of possession of drug paraphernalia.

Assistant District Attorney Joseph D. Perilli said the images depicted in the photos down loaded are of children, however, because the age of the children cannot be determined, the charges are for children under the age of 18, and not 13, as originally charged.

Matika accepted the pleas but deferred sentencing because the charges fall under the provisions of Megan’s Law. Hadzick will be evaluated by the state sexual offenders assessment board to determine if he is a sexual violent predator.

Hadzick is currently in the county prison on the charges.