State Senate research head arrested on child porn charges

A Cobb County man who worked with lawmakers in the Georgia State Senate was arrested and accused of sharing child pornography. Alexander Azarian, 52, worked for the Georgia Senate since June of 1999 and has been the interim director of the Senate Research Office since last year. He has been accused of sending and receiving sexual messages from minors since 2007.

According to his arrest warrant, on July 28, Cobb County police arrested Azarian. Azarian first came to the attention of authorities in February of 2021, when Yahoo notified the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children about an email address sending and receiving the materials. Yahoo reported the activity went as far back as 2007. 

Police obtained a search warrant for his house after the IP address tied to the emails was traced to Azarian’s Smyrna home address. After police searched his home and located child pornography on his cell phone, Azarian was arrested and charged. 

During the raid, police said Azarian admitted he owned the email address, but asked for a lawyer when questioned about the child pornography. The warrant alleges that sexually explicit images of minors were found on his cell phone including photos of a minor girl engaged in sex with a male. The ages of the two were unknown. Azarian faces one count of sexual exploitation of a child and one count of distribution of child pornography, for allegedly sending the images to another person. He was released Saturday on a $70,000 bond.

Steve Tippins, chief of staff for Senate President Pro Tem Butch Miller, R-Gainesville, said 

“Last week, the Senate was notified of the arrest of a current employee, Alex Azarian. He has been suspended indefinitely and a new interim director has been named. As the investigation continues, all relevant staff members will continue to cooperate with relevant law enforcement agencies.”