DOVER-FOXCROFT, Maine — A Sangerville man whose wife previously operated a child day care facility in the family’s home pleaded no contest Monday in Piscataquis County Superior Court to one count of possession of sexually explicit materials of a minor under age 12.
Larry A. Daggett, 51, who police say downloaded about 100 images and videos of underage children engaged in sexual acts, some with adults, and underage children exposing their genitals, was sentenced Monday to three years with the Department of Corrections with all but nine months suspended. He also was placed on probation for two years.
Although there was no evidence that any of the children under the care of his wife, Pam Daggett, were involved in the child pornography case, the Department of Health and Human Services revoked the facility’s license, Piscataquis County District Attorney R. Christopher Almy told Justice William Anderson on Monday.
Daggett’s attorney, Marvin Glazier of Bangor, told Anderson that Daggett lost his job and his wife lost her business and as a result the couple was going through bankruptcy. He said Daggett had no prior criminal record and has been a member of the Masonic Lodge for 25 years.
“I would like to publicly state that I caused a great deal of grief to my wife and my children,” Daggett said Monday in the courtroom. He said he was not sexually interested in children and that some of the material had been mixed in with adult pornography he had downloaded from a peer-to-peer network.
Daggett told Anderson that the images and videos obtained by police in April 2009 had been deleted and were on the hard drive of a computer that later broke. Daggett said some of the downloaded files were not properly labeled, so he didn’t know what the file was until he had opened it.
Anderson said Daggett didn’t just “stumble” upon child pornography, and he called it too much of a coincidence that it had happened repeatedly. He called child pornography “horrible.” If no one were watching such videos, they wouldn’t be made, Anderson said.
“It’s like watching a crime take place,” he said.
The investigation was launched when the Maine State Police Computer Crimes Unit received information from another child pornography investigation that a computer in Maine was sharing and transmitting child pornography, Almy said. A search was made for the computer’s Internet Protocol address, a unique number each computer connected to the Internet is assigned, and that address was to a computer in Daggett’s house, he said.
As part of his sentencing, Anderson allowed Daggett to use a computer for e-mail purposes to help with his consulting work as requested by Glazier. That work will be monitored by the Office of Probation and Parole.