A federal judge in Portland today sentenced a former U.S. Navy reservist to 70 months in prison for possession of child pornography.

Shane Rowell, 30, had been stationed at the Brunswick Naval Air Station. He received a less-than-honorable discharge from the military after his arrest and guilty plea earlier this year.

As he handed down the sentence, District Judge D. Brock Hornby reminded everyone in the courtroom that the Legislature and the U.S. Sentencing Commission have imposed harsh sentence guidelines for such crimes.

"This is a vicious crime. It's not victimless," Hornby said, noting the real child victims whose images are distributed around the world via the Internet.

"People such as yourself create a market by seeing that material," Hornby told Rowell. "It has to be made known that this type of conduct cannot go on."

Copyright 2008 Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.