AUBURN – Two witnesses said Tuesday that Raymond Samson told them to help gather, destroy and hide photographs he had taken of nude minors.
The two said Samson directed them to his RV parked at his Webster Street house in Lewiston and told them to bring back photos, CDs and computer disks he had hidden there. The two filled a backpack with the items and brought them back to Samson, they said.
Paul Mangini said he and Samson took the printed photos into the basement where Samson burned them in a furnace.
Samson told them to break up the CDs that contained nude photos. Then he dug a hole in his backyard with his tractor and buried the remains with their help, they said.
Steve Goodrich, 20, and Mangini, 21, who said they had lived at Samson’s house, testified on the second day of his trial in Androscoggin County Superior Court. Samson is charged with 18 counts, which include gross sexual assault, unlawful sexual contact and sexual exploitation.
Other witnesses told the jury they were minors when Samson had them pose nude for photos. Some said he performed oral sex on them and urged them to have sex with each other while he watched, took photos or videotaped them.
Assistant District Attorney Deborah Cashman showed several of the minors photos of themselves and asked them who took the pictures. They said that Samson did. He told them he was taking “art” pictures for a foreign magazine and would pay them for posing if the pictures were ever published. But they were told the pictures were never published, they said.
Samson encouraged nudity and counseled them that “man-boy love” between a minor and adult was a good thing even though it’s not socially acceptable in the United States, they said.
Samson’s lawyer, Leonard Sharon, raised questions about some of the witnesses’ credibility, comparing their answers in court with written reports from their interviews with police.
He asked Goodrich why he never reported to police what went on at the house where kids were engaging in illegal activities.
“You were afraid you had committed some unlawful acts?” he asked. “Yes,” said Goodrich, who was 18 at the time he lived at the house.
A teenage girl wept under cross-examination as she told how she did nothing to stop Samson from touching a naked young boy at the house who was younger than 10 years old because she feared Samson would kick her out if she did. She had no place else to go, she said.
The girl also testified that Samson taped her having sex with her boyfriend and made them pose for pictures afterwards.
Samson, 54, sat stolidly as he listened to nearly seven hours of testimony Tuesday. Dressed in a plaid shirt and khaki pants, he was escorted by a guard and was wearing a leg restraint. He is being held without bail in Androscoggin County Jail pending the outcome of his trial.
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