Hanging out at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee during a New England high school robotics competition in April, in the company of another convicted sex offender, netted Foster James McClure eight years in prison on Tuesday.

McClure was convicted in 1986 for his involvement in a notorious Waterville child prostitution ring and received a series of sentences designed so the state could keep tabs on him.

On Tuesday, the 56-year-old was returned to prison for the remaining eight years left in his sentence.

He admitted violating his probation by having contact with children under 18 — there were thousands of them at the Colisee, according to a court document by McClure’s probation officer, Adam Silberman — and by being in contact with another convicted sex offender. Both offenses occurred on April 6 in Lewiston, where McClure was apparently living.

That’s when Lewiston police were called to the Colisee because some students reported a man who was videotaping them made them feel uncomfortable, according to court documents.

McClure was with Brian Morin, 29, a convicted sex offender apparently living in Lewiston. Morin was the man doing the videotaping, said Pam Ames, McClure’s attorney.

Morin is one of two men was arrested May 10 and charged with three counts of arson in connection with fires in Lewiston that destroyed two vacant apartment buildings earlier that same week.

A judge in 2002 banned McClure from contact with all children under 18, and another probation condition prohibited him from associating with other convicted sex offenders.

McClure was sentenced for the probation violation Tuesday in Kennebec County Superior Court, the same court in which he pleaded guilty almost 27 years ago to 11 counts of child rape, gross sexual contact, unlawful sexual contact and sexual abuse of a minor.

Six men and one woman were indicted in 1986 in the child prostitution ring police said happened on Sherwin Street in Waterville.

A total of four children — one 10-year-old girl in particular— had been abused and prostituted in the case in which the defendants sold the children for sex to adults for as little as $1 per session, according to accounts of the case.

McClure ultimately was sentenced to 20 years at the time, with all but 15 years suspended, and 12 years of probation.

His prison term ran consecutive to another series of sex charges dating back to 1983. He’s been free a few times over the past few decades.

In 2008, he had one day of freedom before violating probation — by having contact with a 16-year-old boy in a Portland hotel room — and being ordered to serve nine years of a previously suspended sentence.

Dennis Jones, the attorney who represented him in that case, said at the time McClure asked to serve the remaining 19 years of prison time.

“He feels he does better in institutions,” Jones said. “He doesn’t want to be on probation.”

However, since McClure hadn’t violated the terms of the final 10-year sentence, he could not be ordered to serve 19 years.

On Tuesday, Ames — who was a prosecutor in the 1986 case — said eight years was all the time remaining on McClure’s sentences. He will not be on probation when he is released.

She also noted that he will spend about five years in prison instead of the full eight because the original sentence was under the state’s former good-time rules which awarded inmates about 14 days a month off their sentence.

McClure, who is currently listed on the state’s sex offender registry as a lifetime registrant, has been behind bars since his April 6 arrest.

Ames said this time, he didn’t want to go back to jail.

Betty Adams — 621-5631
badams@centralmaine.com

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