ROCKLAND — A Rockland man was sentenced Dec. 28 to serve five years in jail with all but five months suspended for possessing sexual explicit material of minors under the age of 12.

Jarrod Bergeron, 33, was sentenced by Justice William Stokes in Knox County Unified Court. He will also serve two years of probation after his release from jail.

Bergeron was arrested at his home at 58 Acadia Drive Feb. 28, 2016 by the State Police Computer Crimes Unit and charged with possessing child pornography.  

Detectives began investigating Bergeron late in 2015 after receiving a tip, police said in a news release from the Maine Department of Public Safety. His home was searched December 15 and his computers were taken back to the computer crime unit's offices in Vassalboro to be analyzed.  

That exam revealed 130 sexually explicit images of 37 children under the age of 12, police said. Assisting in the investigation were Homeland Security and Rockland Police. Bergeron had been employed as a cook in Camden.

The Maine State Computer Crimes Unit seized two laptop computers and 12 cellphones from the house.

Special Agent Jason Bosco, of the Maine State Police, said in the court affidavit that there was probable cause to search the home for evidence of child pornography. Bosco received information from Anne Griffith, an investigative analyst of the Maine State Police Computer Crimes Unit, about a complaint that had been submitted to police from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

NCMEC had been alerted by Dropbox, Inc. that they suspected a user of a personal dropbox account was uploading and storing child pornography, according to court documents.

In addition to providing services to families and professionals that relate to the abduction and sexual exploitation of children, NCMEC also operates the CyberTipline and child victim identification programs to assist law enforcement officers and others in identifying and rescuing victims of child exploitation and child pornography. They work with electronic service providers to reduce the dissemination of child pornography images and videos and ESPs will alert NCMEC when they determine this activity is taking place.  

The files provided by NCMEC to police include more than 200 images of children, between the ages five and eight, who were linked to the account. According to Dropbox, Inc., the two Internet protocol (IP) addresses were listed as being from Camden. 

Reach Sarah Shepherd at news@penbaypilot.com