Former Maine Assistant Attorney General James M. Cameron, 62, was released from a Colorado prison on Friday, where he had spent the past 11 years following numerous child pornography charges and a cross-country escape attempt.
The Maine State Police began an investigation into Cameron, who primarily prosecuted drug-related cases, in 2007 while he was still a prosecutor.
Cameron uploaded, received, and transported child pornography, sometimes trading his images with other pedophiles for child sexual abuse material in their possession, court records show. His crimes were determined to include 150-300 images, featuring pre-pubescent children and sadistic and violent forms of abuse.
The disgraced prosecutor was indicted in 2009 and found guilty in 2010 of 13 child pornography charges, for which he was sentenced in 2011 to 16 years in prison.
He appealed and was granted bail, though his bail conditions required him to wear a GPS location monitor. In November 2012, the appeals court reversed the conviction on six counts but upheld those on seven others, and Cameron remained a convicted sex offender.
Following that decision, Cameron removed his ankle monitor and fled across the country. A few weeks later, U.S. Marshals found the suspect in New Mexico.
After the appeal and escape attempt, Cameron was re-sentenced to 13 years and nine months in prison, followed by six years of supervised release for the pornography charges, and two years in prison for the escape attempt.
Cameron is not the only high-profile Mainer to be convicted on child pornography charges. Eliot Cutler, 78, a former independent gubernatorial candidate, pleaded guilty in 2023 to four counts of child pornography possession involving children under the age of 12.
Unlike Cameron, who spent a decade behind bars, the politically-connected Cutler curiously received only a nine-month sentence — despite possessing over 80,000 images and videos depicting child sexual abuse.
Cutler is required to spend six years on probation and will remain a lifetime sex offender registrant.
The judge who sentenced Cutler cited the defendant’s age, and apparent contrition as a reason for his lenient sentence.
