Acton man found guilty of possessing and receiving child sexual abuse material

A 44-year-old man was convicted Wednesday of possessing and receiving child sexual abuse material following a two-day trial in federal court in Boston, Acting U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Joshua S. Levy announced.

A jury convicted Patrick Baxter of Acton on one count each of possession of child pornography, receipt of child pornography and sexual exploitation of children, Levy’s office said in a statement. He will be sentenced on January 8.

On at least three separate occasions in June and July 2021, Baxter downloaded child sexual abuse material from the internet. A computer hard drive seized during a search was found to contain approximately 427 video files containing child sexual abuse material, according to the statement.

Baxter was arrested and charged in December 2022.

“It is difficult to find the words to capture how abhorrent the defendant’s behavior was, and today a jury agreed. This man exploited a seven-year-old victim for his own perverse gratification and thought he could get away with it by hiding behind an encrypted device,” Levy said in the statement. “There is no higher priority in this office than protecting children from sexual exploitation, especially at the hands of trusted adults.”

Jodi Cohen, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston division, said authorities were “grateful for the jury’s swift verdict.”

Baxter faces decades in prison.