AUGUSTA — A Waterville man whom police say had 132 images of child sexual abuse on his cellphone has been sentenced to spend a year in prison.
Joshua D. Chambers, 34, pleaded guilty to two counts of possession of sexually explicit materials, a Class C felony, at the Capital Judicial Center on Wednesday. State prosecutors dropped an additional eight counts of that charge as part of a plea agreement.
Chambers was sentenced to 4 years in prison, with all but 12 months of that time suspended, and four years probation. That means he’ll spend one year in prison then be released. But, if he violates the several conditions of his probation, he may have to serve up to the four full years of his sentence.
Probation conditions include that he not view or possess any sexually explicit material and submit to random searches for such material, undergo sex offender counseling, not contact any children under 18 years old directly or indirectly, not access the internet except for specific sites and not be within 1,000 feet of what Assistant District Attorney Shannon Flaherty described as “SORNA restricted zones.”
The Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act of 2013, or SORNA, describes sex offender restricted zones as public or private elementary or middle schools, child care facilities or athletic fields, parks, playgrounds, recreational facilities and youth camps or other places where children are the primary users.
Flaherty said officials of the Maine State Police Computer Crimes Unit received tips, in 2022, that someone had uploaded an image of a child under 12 exposing their genitalia in a lewd manner on Snapchat, an online photo-sharing social media platform. The unit also received a tip that someone posted a lewd video to another messaging service, WhatsApp, of a 7-to-9-year-old girl.
The images were traced to an IP address that came back to Chambers’ parent’s Waterville home, and the date of birth associated with the Snapchat account matched to Chambers.
Flaherty also said the defendant, contacted by police at work, admitted his phone number was connected to the WhatsApp account and that he used a user name, Cowboy, that was also linked to the account, but denied he had ever accessed child pornography.
Police seized his cell phone and, enlisting the help of the U.S. Coast Guard — which Flaherty said was necessary to work around the phone’s password protection — found 132 images of sexually explicit material of children between the ages of 2 and 12, including images in which children were nude and engaging in sexual acts.
Flaherty said both counts which Chambers pleaded guilty to in court Wednesday involved images of children under 12 years old.
Chambers spoke quietly as he answered District Court Judge Daniel Mitchell’s questions, including a hushed “yes” when asked if he was, in fact, guilty.
Chambers was taken from the courtroom to begin serving his sentence Wednesday morning, hugging loved ones as he was being taken into custody.
Chambers will be required to be on the Maine sex offender registry for the rest of his life.
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