Man pleads guilty in child porn case

BANGOR – A local man who claimed that he possessed child pornography as a way to curb his pedophilia waived a grand jury indictment Friday and pleaded guilty in federal court.

He told authorities that he kept the images to control his urge to harm children sexually, according to court documents.

U.S. District Judge John A. Woodcock accepted the guilty plea of Jacques Croll, 45, of Bangor, which was entered by the man’s attorney, Jeffrey Silverstein of Bangor.

Croll faces two counts of possession of child pornography and could face between 10 and 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, according to federal sentencing guidelines. He is scheduled to be sentenced in May.

Croll has two prior convictions for unlawful sexual contact in Maine, including one in Machias that involved 44 victims, according to court documents.

Croll told police that he still struggles at times with his pedophilia but believes he generally has it under control, the documents state.

Because of his past, Croll already was a registered sex offender when police, acting on a tip, found pictures of nude children at the man’s home.

Police asked for permission to search Croll’s Palm Street apartment last November after a friend of his tipped off authorities to the presence of child pornography on his computer, according to court documents.

Inside a safe in Croll’s pantry, police found a brown notebook that contained numerous images of nude boys that appeared to have been printed off the Internet. In another folder, police found Polaroid photographs of an underage boy, including one that showed Croll performing oral sex on the boy, according to court documents.

Police later identified and interviewed the boy, who is now an adult. He said that while he was between the ages of 9 and 12, he had had sexual encounters with Croll, and that the pictures were taken while he was drunk at Croll’s residence.

Additional images were compared against the Child Victim Identification Project database and determined to be authentic. Evidence did not, however, show that Croll had images on his computer.