AUBURN – A former executive at a prominent local family business pleaded no contest Wednesday to charges involving child pornography.

Regis F. Lepage, 52, of Auburn would stand convicted on seven counts of possessing child pornography and one count of disseminating it if a judge accepts the plea agreement at the time of sentencing.

Lepage entered the plea when he appeared in Androscoggin County Superior Court, dressed in a dark suit, standing with his hands folded at his waist.

An Androscoggin County assistant district attorney said she and Lepage’s attorney, William Cote, agreed to an 8-year sentence plus about three or four years of probation. How much of that sentence Lepage would actually serve will be left up to the judge to decide.

Prosecutor Deborah Cashman said she will argue Lepage should serve at least five years in prison. Cote is expected to argue that the judge should suspend a greater portion or all of the 8-year sentence.

Sentencing is scheduled for June 28.

Local police were contacted by a Kansas detective who said she posed undercover as a 13-year-old girl and corresponded with an Internet user in 2005, according to a police affidavit. Police said that user had copied images of children under age 12 engaged in explicit sexual poses to other Internet users. Police found in the header of one of those illicit e-mails a carbon copy sent to an e-mail named “Katemom29” and traced it back to Lepage’s account with America Online, the affidavit said. The Kansas detective noticed Lepage’s e-mail account had sent at least one attachment with sexually explicit images of children to other AOL e-mail accounts.

Prosecutors never charged Lepage with having contact with a minor in connection with the 2005 probe. Rather, they said Lepage viewed images and sent one.

Cote said Lepage entered the no-contest plea as a sign that he doesn’t dispute the charges, rather than admit guilt, because of the possibility of a civil suit involving the images.

If the judge were to accept Lepage’s plea agreement, he would automatically be found guilty on the eight counts, Justice Donald Marden explained Wednesday.

Each of the seven counts of possession is a Class C felony and is punishable by up to five years in prison and carries a fine up to $5,000. The dissemination count is a Class B felony, punishable by 10 years in prison and carries a fine of up to $20,000.

Lepage remains free on $10,000 unsecured bail and is subject to random searches and is barred from having pornography.

He once served as vice president of the family business, Lepage Bakeries, New England’s largest independent bakery. He later resigned and became a business consultant. He has been racing dragsters since the early 1980s.