AUGUSTA — A Florida man and an Augusta woman were sentenced to prison Thursday for the sexual assault of a 14-year-old boy while they were on on a FaceTime video call with each other.

Matthew J. Elston, 33 , of Punta Gorda, Florida, was sentenced in Kennebec County Superior Court to eight years in prison, to be served after he completes a five-and-a-half-year sentence he’s currently serving in Florida for sexual crimes against another child in that state.

Taylor R. Lewis, 29 , of Augusta, was sentenced to three years in prison.

The pair, whom prosecutor Shannon Flaherty, an assistant district attorney, said were romantically involved, acted on a plan largely orchestrated by Elston for the boy to meet Lewis in the parking lot of the Gardiner McDonald’s, where she sexually assaulted him.

That act was broadcast to Elston, who was watching from Florida at the time via the FaceTime video-calling app. He also recorded and later shared the video with others. Flaherty said Elston masturbated, also on the shared FaceTime video, while Lewis sexually assaulted the boy.

The victim, in a statement read in court by a family friend, said the incident has impacted his mental health and turned him into an entirely different person. It causes him to lash out in anger against his peers, the statement said, and has negatively impacted his other relationships, caused him to have PTSD and suicidal thoughts, prevents him from sleeping at night, and caused him to lose 50 pounds because he can hardly eat.

Both Elston and Lewis were charged with sexual exploitation of a minor and sexual abuse of a minor; the more serious charge, sexual exploitation of a minor, is a Class B crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Elston was charged as an accomplice in those two charges, as he didn’t physically participate in the sexual assault, nor was he in Maine at the time. But, Flaherty said, Elston instigated the crime, was the prime planner of the encounter, and without his actions it never would have taken place.

That, combined with Elston’s criminal record, which includes other assaults on children, resulted in an eight-year prison sentence for Elston from Superior Court Justice Michaela Murphy, none of it suspended.

Elston’s criminal record includes a March 2023 conviction in Florida on a charge of unlawful sexual activity with minors for committing a sexual act on a victim under the age of 18 in October 2022. Elston is now serving a five-and-a-half-year sentence, according to a spokesperson for the Florida Office of the State Attorney.

Lewis, who has no criminal record, was also sentenced to eight years in prison, but with all but three years suspended. She will spend only three years in prison if she complies with the terms of her three-year probation when she is released from prison.

Elston’s attorney, Lisa Whittier, sought to have his Maine sentence served concurrently with the remaining time on his Florida sentence, but Murphy declined and made the sentence consecutive to the Florida sentence, noting the crimes were entirely different acts, with different victims, in different states.

Elston, clad in a green Kennebec County jail uniform and with his hands in shackles around his waist, abruptly stood up when Murphy announced his sentence would be served consecutively following his Florida prison term. He left the courtroom, escorted by a jail guard, before Murphy had finished announcing his sentence.

Earlier in court, Elston said he didn’t agree with how the state described the incident but said he would never take the case to a trial in which the victim would likely have had to testify publicly about what happened to him.

Whittier said Elston’s jaw was broken by another inmate and he had been sexually assaulted while incarcerated in Florida where, she said, prison guards don’t protect inmates.

“I want the court to know I don’t believe I’ll ever make it back to the state of Maine,” Elston said of being attacked in prison in Florida. “I’ve been stabbed, raped, been jumped on a daily basis. These are the consequences of my crimes.”

The victim’s mother testified in court that the sexual assault of her son came at a time in his life when he was very vulnerable. She said as court dates arrived in the case she could see him change and engage in risky behavior, including totaling his car in a crash in Gardiner, after which he told her it was really getting to him.

She urged the court to ensure Elston had to serve his sentences consecutively.

“It’s clear Matthew is a habitual pedophile and if the court allows him to serve his sentences concurrently is sends the message to my son that what happened to him doesn’t matter,” she said.

The Kennebec Journal is not naming the victim or his mother because the newspaper’s policy is not to identify victims of sexual abuse without their permission.

Elston was also charged with dissemination of sexually explicit material for sending the FaceTime video to other people. Flaherty said Elston told people what he’d done and they didn’t believe him, so he sent them the video.

Kayla Alves, Lewis’ attorney, said she was unaware her encounter with the victim was being recorded, or that it could be shared with others. A dissemination charge initially filed against Lewis was dropped by prosecutors.

Lewis confessed to engaging in a sexual act with the boy when confronted about it by a family member of the victim, though she said it was Elston’s idea.

Numerous friends and family members were in court in support of Lewis, and Murphy said she’d received many letters from them saying Lewis was kind and had been helpful to them and is a good person.

Alves said Lewis was in a relationship with Elston since she was 16 years old and he was physically abusive of her and had sexually explicit photographs of her that he threatened to disseminate if she didn’t do what he wanted.

“She met him when she, herself, was a child, and he started using her, sexually,” Alves said of Lewis and Elston. “She has accepted responsibility. But we think, overall, Taylor’s story is more than just this video of the crime. Taylor is herself a victim.”

Both Elston and Lewis will be required to register on the Maine Sex Offender Registry for the rest of their lives.