BANGOR, Maine — A convicted sex offender who was arrested in September after he used his cellphone to photograph a boy using a urinal in a Wal-Mart bathroom was sentenced Monday to three years in prison.
Marc Alberi, 46, of Newport pleaded guilty to possession of sexually explicit material depicting a child under 12 — a Class C felony that carries a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison and a $5,000 fine. He also pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor crimes of violation of privacy and prohibited contact with children under 14 years of age.
The plea agreement was accepted by Superior Court Justice Ann Murray during a hearing at the Penobscot Judicial Center.
According to Penobscot County District Attorney R. Christopher Almy, the charges stem from a Sept. 8 incident at the Palmyra Wal-Mart store, where Alberi used his cellphone to photograph an 11-year-old boy who was urinating at the time.
The boy told his mother, who contacted the store’s security staff, Almy said.
Alberi was identified through store surveillance images and by a photo of him posted on the Maine Sex Offender Registry.
The Maine State Police arrested Alberi without incident at his Elm Street residence, where his cellphone and his laptop were seized and analyzed by the state’s computer crimes unit.
While Almy noted that the cellphone photo was not prosecutable because of the angle from which it was taken, the laptop contained about 50 images of children 5 to 8 years of age displaying their genitals.
At the time of his arrest in September, Alberi’s registry listing showed three convictions of gross sexual assault and five convictions of unlawful sexual contact.
Alberi was represented Monday by Bangor attorney Stephen Smith.
“Mr. Alberi is a good man,” Smith said after the sentencing. “He’s got a problem and he acknowledged that problem.”