Bangor Man Pleads Guilty to Child Pornography Charges

Contact: F. Todd Lowell
Assistant United States Attorney
Tel: (207) 945-0373

Bangor, Maine:  United States Attorney Thomas E. Delahanty II announced that Ernest R. Cook, 58, of Bangor, pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court to possessing child pornography and using the internet intending to view child pornography.  Cook was indicted for those crimes in November 2016.

Court records reveal that on December 21, 2014, the Waldo County Sheriff’s Office received information that the defendant had images of child pornography on his computer.  The sheriff’s office executed a search warrant and seized the defendant’s computer and a flash drive.  A forensic examination by the Maine State Police Computer Crimes Unit (MSPCCU) revealed that the defendant used his computer to search for child pornography on the internet and saved those images to the flash drive.

Cook faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each of the two counts.  He will be sentenced after the completion of a presentence investigation report by the U.S. Probation Office.

The investigation was conducted by the Waldo County Sheriff’s Office, the MSPCCU, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations.