BANGOR, Maine — The attorney representing the state’s former top drug prosecutor, who fled the state after some but not all of his convictions on child pornography charges were overturned two years ago, has recommended James Cameron spend 6 ½ years behind bars.
David Beneman said in his 54-page sentencing memorandum filed earlier this month that Cameron should serve the five-year mandatory minimum sentence on the child pornography charges and an additional 18 months on the flight charge.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Gail Malone, who is prosecuting the case, has urged U.S. District Judge John Woodcock, who originally sentenced Cameron to 16 years in federal prison, to impose a sentence of between 24 and 30 years. That is the guideline range the judge ruled in October he would use in fashioning a sentence.
Cameron, 52, of Rome is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Bangor. He is expected to address the court.
He faces between five and 20 years in prison on the child pornography charges and up to 10 years in addition to that on the contempt charge connected to his escape.
He has been held without bail since his arrest Dec. 2, 2012, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Beneman said in his sentencing memorandum that his survey of similar cases around the country showed that the five-year minimum was often imposed. The federal public defender wrote that in 2012 the median national sentence was 6 ½ years. In that same time period, the sentence in the First U.S. Circuit, which includes Maine, was five years and one month.
Cameron’s attorney also provided some insight into how and why his client began viewing child pornography after his parents died in 2008 and Cameron became depressed.
“A combination of factors, external and internal, play a role in his downfall,” Beneman wrote. “Over time the once outgoing, work-, family- and community-involved Jim, became the brooding and reclusive Jim. He embarked on a project writing a book. At night, he increasingly retired to his study, ostensibly working on his book.
“While he did write, he also became increasingly distracted by, and then, involved in Internet activities,” he continued. “He began watching adult pornography. This expanded to chatting with others, devolving into online fantasy, role playing and the child pornography viewing and sharing.”
Beneman did not offer any explanation for Cameron’s flight.
“None of the aggravating factors this court identified during the original sentencing has changed,” prosecutor Malone wrote in her sentencing memorandum filed over the weekend. “Aside from a narrowing of the offense conduct, the record contains no new mitigating factors. On the contrary, it contains substantial and serious new aggravating factors, including defendant’s post-appeal flight, massive consumption of government resources and plea to contempt.
“As the court has calculated it, defendant’s guideline range is now 292 to 365 months [24 years and four months and 30 years and five months],” the prosecutor wrote. “On this record, defendant’s recommended sentence of 78 months, a downward deviation of 214 months, or just under 75 percent, is unjustified and unreasonably low.”
Cameron, a former assistant attorney general who supervised drug prosecutors throughout the state, pleaded guilty in February 2013 to a contempt charge in connection with his flight. By pleading guilty, Cameron admitted he cut off his ankle bracelet Nov. 15, 2012, and fled the state, less than 24 hours after he learned the appellate court in Boston upheld seven of the 13 counts on which he was convicted.
If Cameron had not fled, his guideline range would have been between 19 years and seven months and 24 years and five months, Woodcock determined in October. He also would not have faced an additional decade behind bars on the contempt charge.
Woodcock on March 16, 2011, sentenced Cameron to 16 years in prison after finding him guilty on 13 of 16 child pornography counts after a jury-waived trial the previous August. Then, his guideline range was between 21 years and 10 months and 27 years and three months, according to court documents. The statutory maximum also was 20 years.
Cameron immediately appealed his conviction and sentence, and he asked to be released while the appeal was pending.
Woodcock refused to release Cameron, but the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overruled the judge. Cameron was released from a federal prison in Colorado in August 2011. He returned to Maine to live in a camp in Kennebec County.
The appellate court heard oral arguments in May 2012 and released its decision Nov. 14, 2012. Cameron cut off his ankle bracelet and fled the following day.
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