Berwick man gets two years in child porn case

PORTLAND, Maine - a Berwick man will spend two years in prison and five more of supervised release for possessing child porn.

Peter Anderson, 56, was sentenced on Wednesday in U.S. District Court by Chief Judge Nancy Torresen. Anderson was also ordered to pay $5,000 to each of three victims who sought restitution. He pleaded guilty on April 10, 2015.

According to court documents, on April 23, 2014, law enforcement officers executed a search warrant at Anderson's residence and seized laptops, USB drives and DVD discs containing 105 movie or video files and 430 image files depicting child pornography.

Of those files, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children identified 194 images and 33 videos from 59 series depicting known minor victims. Anderson admitted that he downloaded child pornography for several years for sexual gratification and shared it online.

In pronouncing sentence, Torresen told Anderson that his crime was serious because the production of child pornography ruins the lives of innocent children. The victims described how the knowledge that people took pleasure from viewing pictures of their torture was hurtful. In addition, Torresen noted that the mere possession of child pornography contributes to the exploitation and rape of children by creating demand for the exploitive images.

The investigation was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with assistance from the Maine State Police Computer Crimes Unit.