BY BETTY ADAMS

Staff Writer

A teacher at Mount View Junior High School, acquitted of sex charges almost a decade ago, is charged with possessing child pornography on a school computer.

Michael J. Douglas, 42, was arrested April 16 at his Augusta home and charged with possession of sexually explicit materials that depict children younger than 12. The charge is a felony.

Douglas resigned April 3 as a science teacher at Mount View Junior High School in Thorndike.

The arrest followed several Maine State Police interviews of Douglas. He was taken to Kennebec County jail and was released later the same day on $1,000 bail. He is scheduled to appear in district court in Belfast at 8:30 a.m. May 28.

According to an affidavit by Maine State Police Trooper Corey A. Smith, School Administrative District 3 Superintendent Joseph Mattos called police March 31 to report that Douglas had "a state-issued computer containing child pornography."

The laptop computer was "assigned to and confiscated from Michael Douglas," Smith said.

Douglas admitted to investigators he had used the computer to access child pornography, according to Smith.

"Douglas further stated this had taken place over the course of years and the content of the images he has observed depicted children as young as toddlers to adult women engaged in sexual acts," Smith said.

Smith's affidavit says Douglas also used his home computer to access the material.

Investigators seized Douglas' school and home computers, taking them to the Maine State Police Computer Crimes Unit in Vassalboro for analysis.

On Wednesday, Mattos said Douglas was hired by the school district in September 2004.

In November 2000, a jury in Kennebec County cleared Douglas of four counts of assault against four people, three of them minors, and three counts of unlawful sexual contact against three minors.

The charges stemmed from the summer of 1997 when Douglas was a nature and ropes counselor at Kennebec Camps and was teaching four overnight campers, ages 12 and 13, self-defense on an unlit basketball court.

When he was indicted on those charges, he resigned from a teaching post he had held for 21/2 years at Somerville Elementary School. During the trial, he taught in the Harpswell area.

His attorney in that case, Pasquale Perrino, said Wednesday he had not been contacted by Douglas in the most recent charge, and no attorney is listed with the court.

Douglas also runs Maine Primitive Skills School, originally known as the Good Earth School, in Augusta.

Douglas did not return a phone message left Wednesday at the school.

David Connerty-Marin, director of communications for the state Department of Education, said Douglas has a current teaching certificate with a general elementary endorsement to teach kindergarten through eighth grade. It expires July 1, 2013. Douglas has been certified to teach in Maine since March 19, 1996.

Betty Adams -- 621-5631

badams@centralmaine.com