AUBURN – A former business executive from a prominent Auburn family has pleaded not guilty to child pornography charges.

Regis F. Lepage, 52, appeared in Androscoggin County Superior Court on Friday and was released on $10,000 bail.

Lepage was once a vice president of Lepage Bakeries, New England’s largest independent bakery, before selling his end of the business and becoming a business consultant. He is also a drag racer and travels the country to drag race competitions.

Lepage allegedly sent 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, according to a police affidavit filed by Auburn police Detective Chad Syphers.

The Kansas detective got a search warrant in Virginia to force America Online to turn over records of the account from which the e-mails came.

Syphers said he tracked the billing records to Lepage at a post office box in Auburn. In all, the e-mail account was used to send e-mails that had about 54 attachments with sexually explicit material involving children, according to court documents.

Police staked out Lepage’s home in October and waited for him to return from drag racing competitions shortly before Thanksgiving, Syphers wrote in his affidavit.

Lepage is charged with one count of disseminating child pornography and seven counts of possession. If convicted on all charges, he could be sentenced to up to 45 years in prison.

Lepage and his attorney, William Cote, declined comment at the courthouse.