AUGUSTA — A Rome man already listed as a lifetime sex offender was sentenced Thursday on a new child pornography conviction.

Dennis R. Allen, 74, also of Pompano Beach, Fla., was indicted last summer on a charge of possession of sexually explicit materials, which occurred July 8, 2013, in Rome, and pleaded guilty to the offense in October in Kennebec County Superior Court.

On Thursday, Justice Michaela Murphy sentenced him to serve an initial nine months of a five-year sentence and placed him on probation for six years. She set conditions of probation that prohibit him from contact with children under 18 and from having electronic devices that can access the Internet.

He is listed as a lifetime registrant under the state’s Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act as a result of seven convictions in 1993 for unlawful sexual contact with children under 14.

For those offenses, he was sentenced to serve nine months of a five-year sentence and four years’ probation.

The attorneys had agreed to cap the unsuspended portion of the jail time at nine months and one day, which would have put Allen in prison, rather than at the county jail.

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On Thursday at the sentencing hearing held in the Capital Judicial Center, the prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Kristin Murray-James, said the state police had found that Allen downloaded 171 images of child pornography matching those held by the National Center for Missing Children.

“The images seen by investigators were those of very young children,” she told Justice Michaela Murphy.

Allen told the judge, “I would like to say I’m very sorry I dishonored those girls, and it will never happen again.”

Murray-James also said a forensic evaluation of Allen done in connection with the 1993 conviction found that he was a pedophile attracted to prepubescent children ages 7-11 and would find children who needed adult attention.

He also was convicted of arson in 1980, which Murray-James said was an attempted suicide, according to that same evaluator.

“Now that in modern times he has access to Internet, he continued with his pedophilic tendencies,” Murray-James told the judge.

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Allen’s attorney, Walter McKee, asked that Allen do a 30-day jail sentence because he suffers from a myriad of health problems.

“Thirty days for Dennis Allen is nine months and a day for other people,” McKee said.

The attorney said Allen has a heart condition, kidney problems and anemia among other ailments.

“He has in essence limped in here,” McKee said, adding that Allen has had no bail violations during the past two years on bail.

Allen was ordered to begin the nine-month sentence on April 9 to allow time to coordinate medications with the jail.

Betty Adams — 621-5631

badams@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @betadams


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