A Windham man has pleaded guilty to sharing sexually explicit images of children.
Cote Noonan, 33, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court on Wednesday to one count of possession and one count of distribution of child pornography.
He has been in custody since his arrest late last year and will be sentenced at a later date after probation services finishes a sentencing report that’s due in August. He faces up to 20 years in federal prison on each count and up to $250,000 in fines.
Police said in court records that Noonan had told an undercover FBI agent that he was “attracted to babies and toddlers.”
When police searched Noonan’s home in December before his arrest, FBI Special Agent Stephanie Rattigan said Noonan confessed to downloading the images and also to taking pornographic images of an infant relative.
Many of the images police found on Noonan’s laptop, his cellphone and two hard drives depicted children younger than 12 years old, according to an affidavit by Rattigan.
The FBI’s investigation into Noonan began the October before his arrest, when they said he started messaging an undercover agent in an online forum known for exchanging child pornography.
Noonan sent the FBI employee three videos involving boys between 7 months and 7 years old, Rattigan wrote.
The FBI employee tracked the IP address back to Noonan. Rattigan said the same address was the subject of three tips that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children had received in April from the website Imgur, flagging his account for possessing, manufacturing and distributing apparent child pornography.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Noonan had been a research scientist at Sappi in Westbrook since 2018. But in a statement after his arrest, the company said Noonan “is no longer employed by Sappi.” He graduated from the University of Maine in 2013.
Noonan also used an email address for Maine state employees as his backup account, according to the FBI. A spokesperson for the Department of Administrative and Financial Services said in December the state has no record of that email address or Noonan as an employee.
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