RUMFORD – Charges continued to rack up on Wednesday against a local man accused of sending sexually explicit photos of children over the Internet to undercover police in Montana during the past two months.

Anthony S. Richards, 33, of 244 Pine St., was arrested by U.S. Secret Service agent Tom Jeter on charges stemming from a joint Internet child pornography investigation by the FBI and the Montana Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

Richards was charged Wednesday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Portland with two counts of attempted sexual exploitation of children, two counts of distribution of child pornography and attempted distribution of child pornography to a minor.

Jonathan Chapman, the U.S. assistant attorney who is trying the case, said that the first two counts are punishable by up to 30 years each in a federal prison; the other three charges could net up to 20 years each. Additionally, each count carries a fine of up to $250,000.

After Wednesday’s hearing, U.S. Magistrate Judge John H. Rich III ordered Richards held in U.S. Marshal Service custody pending continuation of identity, preliminary and detention hearings. Those will be held at 2 p.m. on Thursday, April 16, in the federal court in Portland.

Until then, Richards, who is unemployed, will be held in Cumberland County Jail in Portland.

According to an affidavit filed by FBI Special Agent Kevin Damuth, Richards is accused of persuading a young Rumford girl to engage in sexually explicit conduct, which was then photographed and dispersed over the Internet.

Damuth said Richards used his Yahoo! Instant Messenger account on Feb. 10 to send photographs of that conduct and 24 pornographic pictures to Detective Bryan D. Fischer of the Montana Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. At least three of the files were sexually explicit.

On Dec. 4, 2008, Fischer had assumed the Yahoo! screen name of an indicted child pornography suspect, with whom Damuth said Richards was corresponding.

During the Feb. 10 Internet chat, Damuth said Richards corroborated that he had been sexually abusing a young Rumford girl and fantasized about doing the same to two other local children, ages 4 and 7.

Damuth, who is assigned to Helena, Mont., to investigate cases involving sexual exploitation of minors, was also posing on the Internet as a mother with two preteen daughters.

Damuth said Richards contacted him through a chat on March 5, and sent him five photographs of girls, one of which revealed sexually explicit conduct.

He said Richards asked Damuth, who he thought was a mother of two preteen girls, to send him sexually explicit photographs of the daughters.

Additionally, Damuth said Richards asked him to show the sexually explicit photographs to the girls to get them to pose in that fashion. That was the fifth count of the charges against Richards.

To find Richards, the affidavit states that an FBI analyst subpoenaed subscriber records for Richard’s screen name from Yahoo! She did the same for account information from FairPoint Communications after learning that Richards used the bogus alias of “Mike Reynolds” of Norway to get the Yahoo! account.

Richards was arrested by Rumford police on April 2 and charged with sexually touching a young Rumford girl, whose photo was among those sent over Yahoo! Instant Messenger.

Based on the FBI and Montana task force investigation, Richards was initially arrested on March 31 by the Maine State Police Computer Crimes Task Force and charged with felony possession of child pornography.

He was free on bail in both cases when the Secret Service picked him up on Wednesday morning. Montana authorities could seek extradition of Richards at his April 16 hearings to prosecute him there instead of in Maine, Chapman said.