AUGUSTA — A Litchfield man caught in possession of eight cellphone videos of children being sexually assaulted pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of possession of sexually explicit materials and was sentenced to spend at least 90 days in jail.
Peter Davidson, left, looks toward his defense attorney Robert Van Horn during sentencing hearing Thursday at the Capital Judicial Center in Augusta. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal
Peter N. Davidson, 59, of Litchfield, was indicted in June 2021 on five counts of possession of sexually explicit materials, each in Litchfield, and each involving materials involving children younger than 12 years old, on June 5, 2020.
He pleaded guilty to one of those counts Thursday, in a negotiated deal with state prosecutors, and Superior Court Justice Deborah Cashman sentenced him to three years, with all but 90 days of that sentence suspended, and two years of probation. That means he will spend about 90 days in jail if he follows the conditions of his probation, but could face the full three-year sentence if he does not.
Assistant District Attorney Amanda Seekins said Maine State Police sought a search warrant after receiving a tip from Flicker, an online photo-sharing system, that someone with an IP address police traced back to Davidson’s workplace had uploaded photographs of a sexual nature involving children. Police traced the Flicker account to Davidson and obtained a search warrant for his family’s Litchfield home, where they seized and later searched multiple electronic devices.
On his iPhone, state police with the Computer Crimes Division said they found eight videos, depicting children believed to be between the ages of 5 and 13, in various stages of undress and in sexual acts with other children, an adult male, and by themselves, according to Seekins.
Davidson said he was the only one who had access to that iPhone, and admitted to police he had viewed child pornography on the internet. He said if he uploaded photographs to Flicker, it was by mistake. He told police sometimes he would look at child pornography at night and, the next morning, feel bad about doing so, recognize it was wrong, and delete the images he’d looked at.
In court, Davidson said what he did was wrong and said in the two-and-a-half years since police came to his house with a search warrant he has done a lot of self-reflecting. He also voluntarily took part in sex offender counseling.
“I do recognize the seriousness of the situation,” Davidson said. “There are a lot of victims here, my kids, my wife and the unnamed victims passed around on the internet. I do see what I’ve done is just not right.”
Davidson’s attorney, Robert Van Horn, noted Davidson has no criminal record, served in the Marines as a young man, has a steady job he works hard at, has an adult son he cares for, and immediately took responsibility for his actions. He noted Davidson did not create any of the videos, and did not have a large stash of child pornography, as other devices seized and searched from his home were not found to have any illegal images on them. Van Horn sought a sentence of 18 months, with all but seven days suspended.
Superior Court Justice Deborah Cashman speaks from the bench during sentencing for Peter Davidson Thursday at the Capital Judicial Center in Augusta. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal
Cashman acknowledged those mitigating factors but also noted Davidson’s crime involved child victims and videos of them being sexually assaulted. Davidson, in viewing them, perpetuated the images that can remain online for many years, potentially haunting the children in them into adulthood, the justice said.
Seekins, the prosecutor, said the eight videos each lasted a number of minutes and each involved different children.
“This crime is centered on the defendant finding joy in the sexual assault of children under 12 years old,” said Seekins, who argued Davidson should serve a year behind bars, with two years suspended of a three-year sentence. The charge against Davidson is a class C felony, punishable by up to five years in prison.
Seekins said he will be required to be on the sex offender registry for 25 years.
His probation conditions include that he have no contact with children under the age of 18, undergo sex offender counseling, submit to random searches, not be within 1,000 feet of parks, playgrounds or schools, and not use any device capable of accessing the internet, other than at his workplace for work purposes.
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