PORTLAND — A former state prosecutor accused of fleeing Maine after being sentenced in a federal child pornography case will face a new charge of criminal contempt when he is returned to court in Portland next week.

Authorities say James Cameron, 50, of Rome, cut his electronic monitoring bracelet in November and remained a fugitive for nearly three weeks before the U.S Marshals Service arrested him on Dec. 2 in Albuquerque, N.M.

A prosecutor filed the new charge against him Wednesday in advance to Cameron’s slated appearance before Judge John Woodcock Jr. in U.S. District Court in Portland on Jan. 10 at 3:30 p.m.

Woodcock presided over Cameron’s trial and in March 2011 sentenced Cameron to 16 years in prison after he was convicted of several child pornography charges.

Cameron appealed those convictions, and the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston ordered Cameron be freed in August 2011 while he awaited a decision on the appeal. Woodcock set the conditions of Cameron’s release, which included the electronic monitoring.

According to court documents, Cameron, formerly of Hallowell and most recently of Rome, cut off his monitoring bracelet and fled his Rome home on Nov. 15, hours after the court of appeals upheld seven of 13 convictions against him.

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Two days after his arrest in New Mexico, a U.S. District Court judge there ordered Cameron back to Maine after he waived his right to an identity hearing and any preliminary or detention hearing and requested those hearings be held in Maine.

Cameron was the chief drug crimes prosecutor in the Maine Office of the Attorney General, where he spent 18 years as an assistant attorney general.

A prosecutor has said the U.S. Attorney’s Office will seek to have Cameron’s bail revoked during the Jan. 10 hearing.

Staff Writer Scott Dolan can be contacted at: 791-6304 or at
sdolan@mainetoday.com


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