AUBURN – A former business executive from a prominent Auburn family was handed an eight-year suspended sentence Monday in Androscoggin County Superior Court for possessing and disseminating child pornography.

As part of a plea agreement, Regis Lepage, 53, was also placed on probation for four years and ordered to perform 4,000 hours of community service. In addition, he must register as a sex offender, undergo counseling and refrain from possessing pornography or using the Internet.

Lepage, who had been free on $10,000 bail, came to the attention of authorities after his e-mail was found on the computer of another man accused of sending more than a dozen pornographic photographs and video clips by e-mail to a police detective in Kansas, who was posing as a 13-year-old girl in an Internet chat room.

Lepage, who was charged after authorities searched his computer and recovered 35 photos and 62 videos, is a business consultant and a former vice president of Lepage Bakeries, New England’s largest independent bakery.