Somerville Man Sentenced for Possessing Child Pornography

PORTLAND, ME—United States Attorney Thomas E. Delahanty II announced that Matthew G. Clark, 60, of Somerville, Maine was sentenced today by Judge George Z. Singal in U.S. District Court in Portland to 17 years’ imprisonment to be followed by a lifetime of supervised release. On January 27, 2011, following a three-day bench trial, Clark was found guilty by Judge Singal of two counts of possessing child pornography.

The evidence introduced at trial showed that in January of 2008, employees of the state Animal Welfare Program executed a search warrant at Clark’s home for evidence of animal cruelty. During the search, the employees found items relating to the possession of child pornography in Clark’s bedroom, including handwritten lists of Internet website addresses suggestive of child pornography and numerous photographs of children, including several photos of what appeared to be teenage males with their genitalia exposed. Officers from the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office obtained a second search warrant for evidence of child pornography. Officers executing the second warrant found VHS cassette tapes and a desktop computer in Clark’s bedroom that were later determined to contain child pornography videos and still images. At the trial’s conclusion, Judge Singal found that Clark knowingly possessed the child pornography found on the cassettes and computer.

Clark was subject to a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence due to his previous convictions for sexual crimes involving minors. At the time Clark possessed child pornography he had a military conviction for sodomy and a Maine conviction for unlawful sexual contact.

The investigation was conducted by the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office, the Maine State Police Computer Crimes Unit, the United States Secret Service, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.