PORTLAND — A judge who sentenced a Lewiston man to 35 years in prison after he admitted to performing sex acts on an infant while recording them called the crime “among the worst I’ve ever seen.”

Timothy Doyon, 29, appeared in U.S. District Court in a tan jail suit and handcuffs, where Judge Nancy Torresen imposed his sentence for the felony crime of sexual exploitation of a child.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Lindsay Feinberg was seeking a sentence of 55 years in prison.

Federal public defender David Beneman recommended a 25-year sentence.

Judge Torresen also imposed a 10-year sentence on Doyon for the crime of possession of child pornography, which Doyon will serve concurrently to his sentence for the other crime.

After serving his prison sentence, Doyon will be on supervised release for his lifetime, Torresen said.

He also was ordered to pay $103,500 in restitution to his victims, including those depicted in the child pornography he collected.

Because his sentence is greater than 25 years, he may appeal it and his conviction.

Feinberg described Doyon’s “deeply disturbing” criminal conduct against the infant in graphic detail Tuesday.

She said the half-dozen video recordings Doyon made of himself and the victim were “horrifying.”

The child was less than one month old.

Feinberg said more than 6,600 files of child pornography were found in Doyon’s possession.

He had been convicted in a state court in 2016 of possession of child pornography, which enhanced the federal crimes to a more serious status.

Beneman, Doyon’s attorney, described his client’s conduct as “horrible.”

Beneman outlined Doyon’s childhood for the judge.

Doyon was sexually abused during his childhood, bullied at school and beaten up by a group of boys, Beneman said.

“He never knew why, but attributed most of the bullying to being overweight,” Beneman wrote in a sentencing memorandum.

Doyon had been on steroids for asthma, which contributed to his weight gain, Beneman wrote.

“The attack furthered his isolation and he felt safe only when at home. He left school at that point — eighth grade — as a result of the bullying and being assaulted and threatened,” Beneman wrote.

Doyon suffered from depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and agoraphobia, Beneman said.

When Doyon dropped out of middle school his mother tried to homeschool him, but he only recently completed his General Educational Development tests or GED while awaiting trial in federal custody at a county jail in New Hampshire.

Doyon attempted suicide multiple times between age 16 and 17, Beneman wrote.

At age 20, Doyon again attempted suicide by ingesting a “massive” dose of mental health medication, Beneman wrote.

Doyon was hospitalized and in a coma for five days. A few weeks after being released from the hospital, he repeated the same actions, resulting in another hospitalization, Beneman wrote.

During that same time period — age 20 to 22 — Doyon “had a serious drinking problem,” Beneman wrote.

Doyon never violated the terms of his probation for his earlier child pornography crime, Beneman wrote. But when that probation ended, so did Doyon’s counseling.

In the summer of 2023, before his arrest in the federal case, Doyon went voluntarily to sex offender treatment, Beneman wrote. Doyon had already committed the new criminal conduct in the federal crimes, but hadn’t been charged yet.

“To his credit, he went on his own to treatment and admitted to his problem,” Beneman wrote.

Torresen told Doyon on Tuesday it was a “very sad story you bring to me.”

After reading through the detailed affidavit supporting Doyon’s arrest and listening to Feinberg’s description of his actions, Torresen said, “This crime is among the worst I have ever seen.”

Doyon stood and read a statement.

“I understand the gravity of my conduct,” he said.

He apologized to his victims and his family. He said he should have continued his sex offender treatment after probation no longer required it.

He said he was “ashamed” of his “selfish” actions, then broke into sobs.

Doyon was “sorry for the pain I’ve caused,” he said. “I’ll be sorry till the day I die.”

In March 2023, the Maine State Police Computer Crimes Unit received three related “CyberTips” from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, according to an affidavit filed by Elliot Arsenault, special agent with Homeland Security Investigations.

All three tips were submitted by a cloud-based storage provider for a major cellphone provider’s account holders.

The storage provider flagged a specific cellphone number as having uploaded hundreds of files depicting suspected child pornography.

Police traced the files back to Doyon’s cellphone and learned that he was a registered sex offender.

That led police to execute a search warrant for Doyon’s home, vehicle and himself for any cellphones or digital storage media for evidence of suspected child pornography offenses.

Police talked to Doyon, who said he used his cellphone, “to obtain ‘a lot’ of child pornography using various mobile applications … and that ‘I started clicking on links and then, you know, I went back in the rabbit hole.'”