A York County man who collected more than 20,000 images and 1,300 videos of child pornography was sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Portland to four years in prison.

Robert St. Jean, 37, of Lyman, was sentenced by Judge Nancy Torresen for the charge of possession of child pornography to also serve five years of supervised release after completing his federal prison term and pay $19,000 in restitution.

An undercover agent from the federal Department of Homeland Security first began investigating St. Jean on July 30, 2012, after discovering child pornography being offered for download through an Internet file-sharing network. Federal and state authorities later traced the origin of those files to a computer at St. Jean’s residence, Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Block wrote in a prosecution document filed with the court.

Homeland Security Agent James Bell and other law enforcement officers executed a search warrant at St. Jean’s address and seized several computers, external hard drives and other electronic devices containing child pornography images and videos, according to the prosecution document.

“In total, the defendant possessed 21,242 images and 1,311 videos containing child pornography. Several of those images contained bestiality, bondage or sadistic/masochistic abuse,” Block wrote.

St. Jean pleaded guilty to the charge before Torresen on Jan. 30, three days before he was due to stand trial.

Scott Dolan can be contacted at 791-6304 or at:

sdolan@pressherald.com

Twitter: @scottddolan

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