Bangor, Maine: A former Brewer resident pleaded guilty today in federal court in Bangor to possessing images of child exploitation, U.S. Attorney Halsey B. Frank announced.
According to court records, Joseph L. Messier, 55, possessed videos of children engaging in sexually explicit conduct, which he had purposefully sought out and received through the internet sometime between January 2018 and March 2018. These videos depicted the sexual exploitation of prepubescent children under the age of 12.
Messier faces an enhanced sentence of 10-20 years in prison as a result of a prior sex offense conviction. He also faces a $250,000 fine and from five years to a lifetime of supervised release. He will be sentenced after the completion of a presentence investigation report by the U.S. Probation Office.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations and the Maine State Police Computer Crimes Unit investigated this case. The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
