AUBURN – A 20-year-old Litchfield man pleaded guilty Wednesday to three felony charges for browsing child pornography at a pediatrics office where he was working as a night cleaner.

A judge in Androscoggin County Superior Court sentenced Justin Hart to four years in prison with two years suspended, plus four years of probation.

Hart, who also listed a Lewiston address, pleaded guilty to three felony charges of possession of sexually explicit materials. Twenty-four other counts on the same charge were dismissed. A misdemeanor charge for using a company’s computer without permission also was dropped.

In exchange, Hart agreed to plead guilty to the three counts stemming from pornographic images that involved toddlers.

He had requested a bench trial, then changed his plea shortly before the trial was scheduled to start Wednesday morning.

Assistant District Attorney Deborah Cashman told Justice Thomas Delahanty II that she would have presented her case with witnesses and evidence showing that Hart had gained access to Pediatric Associates of Lewiston where he viewed 457 pornographic pictures on the World Wide Web.

Seventy of the images were identified by the National Center for Exploited and Missing Children as known pornography involving children under the age of 12, linked to 28 separate series of photos, Cashman said.

The father of Hart’s girlfriend at that time (with whom he has a 2-year-old child) gave Hart his key card to the office, where Hart was expected to substitute for the man as an office cleaner in December 2006, Cashman said. The office had hired an independent contractor to clean the office at night.

That night, Hart logged onto one of the office computers and viewed the pornographic images. His girlfriend’s father and mother showed up later that night and noticed little work had been done.

The next day, a worker at the doctors’ office complained her computer was not working properly. A computer technician investigated, noticed something was wrong and called police, Cashman said.

A police detective who specializes in computer crimes found pornography on two hard drives police had seized.

He checked with the national children’s group to learn which images were authentic child pornography.

A check of the electronic keys showed that Hart was the only one in the office at the time the images were viewed, Cashman said.

Hart admitted to police during an interview that he had looked up the images online. He never sent files and did not download them, Cashman said.

George Hess, Hart’s attorney, said his client hired a forensics expert to review the state’s evidence. Hart said he believed he would have been found guilty had the case gone to trial.

Among the conditions of Hart’s probation are that he:

• have no access to computers or the Internet;

• not possess sexually explicit materials;

• undergo sex offender counseling;

• have no contact with minors, except his child, but only with permission from his probation officer, his counselor and the child’s mother; and

• register with the state as a sex offender for 10 years.

Hess said his client experienced a lapse in judgment. “He understands that.”

Hart, who had been free on personal recognizance, had been attempting to overcome personal issues related to the child pornography, Hess said.

Copy the Story Link