AUGUSTA — A city man is accused of coercing a 14-year-old girl to send him nude photos of herself via an Internet chatroom.

State and Augusta police arrested Shane Pelletier, 22, of Augusta on a Colorado charge of sexual exploitation of a minor via telecommunications.

According to Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman Steve McCausland, police in Fort Collins, Colo., notified the Maine State Police Computer Crimes Unit last summer that they were investigating the case. On Wednesday, Maine police learned the charge was pending.

Pelletier was arrested in his Bangor Street apartment, and was taken to Kennebec County jail on a charge of being a fugitive from justice. He faces extradition proceedings to transport him to Colorado to face the sexual exploitation charge, McCausland said.

Neither Kennebec County Superior Court nor Augusta District Court had a complaint on file against Pelletier late Friday. However, it is likely he will be brought before a judge for a hearing on Monday.

Under the Colorado Criminal Code, the felony offense of Internet sexual exploitation of a child occurs when someone “knowingly importunes, invites, or entices through communication via a computer network or system, telephone network, or data network or by a text message or instant message, a person whom the actor knows or believes to be under fifteen years of age and at least four years younger than the actor,” to expose or observe intimate body parts.


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