By Christopher Williams,Staff Writer

AUBURN – A drag racer and former executive from a prominent local family appeared in court Friday to answer to charges of child pornography.

Regis F. Lepage, 52, of Auburn pleaded not guilty in Androscoggin County Superior Court to one count of disseminating child pornography and seven counts of possession. If convicted on all charges, he could face up to 45 years in prison.

He served as vice president of the family business, Lepage Bakeries, New England’s largest independent bakery.

Lepage was not arrested or indicted. In a rare action, he waived his right to a grand jury review of the case. He is expected to plead guilty to the charges later in the summer, said Auburn Police Lt. Jason Moen.

Lepage, dressed in a dark suit, appeared in court with Lewiston lawyer William Cote.

Justice Carl Bradford set bail at $10,000, unsecured. Lepage is subject to random searches of his body, home and vehicles. He also was barred from having pornography.

Lepage and Cote declined to be interviewed at the courthouse.

Police learned about Lepage’s alleged activities after getting a call in September from Jennifer Wright, a Wichita, Kan., police detective.

She had been posing undercover as a child in Internet chat rooms. She traced back to Maine an e-mail account used to send child pornography, according to a police affidavit filed by Auburn Police Detective Chad Syphers.

Police said Lepage used the screen name “WETWILLI” in a chat room called “Junior hi hotties.” Wright had assumed the identity of a 13-year-old girl named “Lexi.”

Lepage sent more than a dozen e-mail photographs or video clips showing young children engaged in sexually explicit acts, sometimes with adults, court documents said.

Wright got a search warrant in Virginia (headquarters for America Online) to make that company give her records of the account from which the e-mails came. In all, the account was used to send e-mails that had about 54 attachments with sexually explicit material involving children age 5-16, court records said. Of those, 33 were video clips, 21 were photographs.

Syphers said he tracked the billing records to Lepage at a P.O. Box in Auburn. The detective got a warrant to search Lepage’s home at Hotel Road, along with his Audi station wagon and RV.

Police staked out his home in October and waited for him to return from drag racing competitions shortly before Thanksgiving, Syphers wrote in his affidavit.

Lepage was vice president of Lepage Bakeries before selling his end of the family business and becoming a business consultant. He has been racing dragsters since the early 1980s, according to published reports.

He travels around the country to races with his wife, Carolyn. The cars he drives can go from zero to 172 mph in less than nine seconds.

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