A former top drug prosecutor for the state maintains that his 165-month sentence for receiving, transporting and possessing child pornography is far longer than others have received for similar conduct.

James M. Cameron, a former assistant attorney general who was out on bail and living in Rome when he cut off a monitoring bracelet and drove to New Mexico before being stopped, appealed that sentence Tuesday to the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals.

Now 53, Cameron is imprisoned at the Englewood Federal Correctional Institution in Littleton, Colorado, and has a release date of Sept. 2, 2025, according to a federal prison website.

He was not present at the oral argument proceeding.

On Tuesday morning, his attorney, Peter C. Horstmann asked a three-judge panel in Boston to vacate that sentence and order a new sentencing hearing for Cameron.

At the same hearing, the federal government, through Assistant U.S. Attorney Renee M. Bunker, asked the judges to affirm the sentence. In documents filed with the court, Bunker said Cameron’s sentence was sound and reasonable and 127 months below the guideline range. She noted Cameron used various internet-based file sharing and chat programs to trade images of child pornography in 2006 and 2007. At the time, Cameron was living in Hallowell.

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Horstmann said Tuesday that Cameron’s sentence was “twice as long” as those other defendants received for the same offenses.

In response to the government’s brief, Horstmann wrote, “Cameron contends that certain legally impermissible facts were erroneously considered as aggravating factors and that the (U.S. District Court in Maine) failed to adjust the sentence for certain aggravating factors that were found to no longer exist.”

Horstmann also said Cameron was not appealing the 24-month consecutive sentence for contempt of court that was a result of his jumping bail.

Cameron’s previous appeal to that appeals court resulted in a partial victory. In a decision issued Nov. 14, 2012, that court overturned convictions on six charges on the basis that they violated Cameron’s constitutional rights under the Sixth Amendment, which requires that those accused of a crime have a right to cross-examine witnesses. That court affirmed convictions on seven counts, sending the case back to the judge in Maine for re-sentencing or a new trial if the government chose to do that.

The prosecution declined, so Cameron was re-sentenced in December 2014. At that time, he apologized to the victims of child pornography and told U.S. District Court Judge John A. Woodcock Jr., “I freely admit that late in 2006 and throughout 2007, at a difficult time in my life, I became addicted to child pornography,” adding, “I did it, and I’m guilty because I did it.”

Cameron had been sentenced to 16 years in prison on the original 13 crimes involving child pornography. At the second sentencing, the total was 189 months — 15 years and 9 months, including the 24 months for contempt.

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Woodcock issued a written order explaining how he calculated the 292-to-365-month guideline sentence in the case, noting that the guideline was enhanced, among other things, because 150 to 300 images of child pornography were involved, and some of them showed sadistic and masochistic conduct and that images showed adult males having sexual relations with very young children.

Cameron previously was the chief drug crimes prosecutor in the Office of the Maine Attorney General, where he spent 18 years as an assistant attorney general.

He became the target of an investigation after the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reported Yahoo had found multiple images of child pornography in a Yahoo account belonging to Cameron’s wife.

Cameron was fired from the attorney general’s office in April 2008 and indicted on the child pornography charges Feb. 11, 2009.

He was suspended from law practice as a result of his convictions and later resigned from the Maine Bar and was disbarred in other states.

The appeals court panel issues decisions in writing and that can occur months after oral arguments are heard.

Betty Adams — 621-5631

badams@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @betadams


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