BANGOR – A convicted sex offender will serve about four times as many years in federal prison for possession of child pornography than he would have served had he not been convicted in state court of sexually assaulting a child.

Hugh F. Whitty IV, 28, of Bangor was sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Bangor to 10 years in prison for downloading onto his computer images of adults having sex with children.

If he had not been convicted in 1999 in Penobscot County Superior Court of assaulting a 5-year-old girl, Whitty would have faced between 17 and 33 months in prison, U.S. District Judge John Woodcock told him in handing down the sentence.

“After you committed your prior crime and once you accessed child pornography, you sentenced yourself, ” the judge said. “This sentence, Mr. Whitty, is a direct reflection of our determination as a society to protect our children.”

Whitty was indicted in April by a federal grand jury for possession of child pornography. He pleaded guilty to the charge in June.

Woodcock also sentenced Whitty to 15 years of supervised release once he is released from prison. The judge could have imposed any number of years of supervision up to life.

He also recommended that the U.S. Bureau of Prisons assign Whitty to a facility that offers intense sex offender therapy.

“I apologize for everything I have done,” Whitty told the judge. “I understand that I have a lot of mental health issues that I have to deal with. I want to do all I can to help myself with these issues.”

Seven years ago, Whitty was sentenced in Penobscot County Superior Court to eight years in prison with all but nine months suspended and then six years of probation. After completing his sentence, he underwent an intensive two-year sex offender therapy program in Bangor, Wade Maddox of the U.S. Department of Probation and Pretrial Services testified at Whitty’s bail hearing in April.

Maddox told the judge that Whitty had been diagnosed a pedophile with a high likelihood of reoffending before he was released from prison in late 1999.

The federal charge stemmed from an incident in September 2004 when Whitty’s state probation officer found what he suspected was child pornography on Whitty’s computer, Assistant U.S. Attorney Gail Malone, who prosecuted the case, said earlier this year.

In state court, Whitty admitted he had violated his probation by possessing pornography. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison. He was released Dec. 30, 2005.