A federal judge will decide March 10 how long the state’s former top drug prosecutor will spend in prison for possession and transmission of child pornography.

Prosecuting and defense attorneys have filed memos in advance of the sentencing of James M. Cameron in federal court in Bangor.

Cameron, formerly of Hallowell and Rome, faces a minimum of five years and a maximum of more than 27 years in federal prison.

He was convicted of the child pornography charges on Aug. 23, after a six-day nonjury trial in Portland. He was ordered held by the U.S. Marshal’s Service pending sentencing.

The prosecutors, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Richard W. Murphy, Donald E. Clark and Gail Fisk Malone, are asking Judge John A. Woodcock Jr. to impose a sentence that falls within federal guidelines — 262 to 327 months.

Cameron’s attorney, Michael A. Cunniff, proposes that the judge depart significantly from those guidelines and sentence the former assistant attorney general to a five-year term for 13 counts of transporting, receiving and possessing child pornography over the Internet.

Cunniff describes Cameron as “a first-offender with a previously unblemished record of public service” and later says his client “takes full responsibility for his involvement with child pornography. In particular, Mr. Cameron recognizes — and accepts — the need for atonement.”

The defense’s sentencing memo also says experts helped determine that some of the images did not necessarily depict minors.

Cunniff also describes the conviction’s effect on Cameron’s life:

“He has lost his job in public service, he is in the process of disbarment and he has little hope of ever practicing law again — indeed, it is unlikely that he will ever gain meaningful employment. He has lost his reputation, with little hope of overcoming the disgrace that has befallen him. His business is failing due to his incarceration. His marriage has failed at least in part due to the issues that led to his misconduct — he hopes for reconciliation, but the prospect of a long prison term is a hampering factor.”

The prosecutors say the sentence should be long because Cameron had images of child pornography featuring prepubescent minors and images of sadistic or masochistic behavior. They maintain that Cameron does not deserve a reduction in sentence because he failed to accept responsibility.

“The defendant did not admit any guilt at all until his post-trial interview with United States Probation. Even then, he minimized his culpability,” they say.

The prosecutors’ memo details a lengthy Internet exchange of child pornography on Google Hello — a now-defunct online photo sharing network — between Cameron and someone identified as “kinkybink.”

They say Cameron had at least 547 images of child pornography — a number disputed by the defense — and used four computers to send and receive them.

“Many of the images depicted babies and young children being victimized. His pervasive use of file wiping software suggests that the number of images he traded and possessed was much higher. He hid these images on remote Yahoo! servers under assumed names hoping to conceal his identity, while keeping his child pornography collection readily available for viewing and trading.”

The prosecutors maintain that Cameron was an active trader and engaged in it on work time: “The evidence proved that, when he was supposed to be prosecuting drug offenders, the defendant was often at home, on his computer, viewing and trading child pornography.”

They cite Cameron’s admission to an investigator that he was addicted to child pornography.

Cameron came under investigation after the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reported that Yahoo! had found multiple images of child pornography in an account. According to court documents, a search on Dec. 21, 2007, revealed child pornography on a computer in his home.

He was fired from the Attorney General’s Office in April 2008 after 18 years as an assistant attorney general. He was indicted on the child pornography charges on Feb. 11, 2009.