HANDOUT

Mark J. Newton, 42, was sentenced to 40 years in prison and ordered to pay $400,000 in restitution to the child.

 An Australian couple is accused of making hardcore child porn with their “adopted son” for an international porn syndicate known as the Boy Lovers network.

On Friday, Mark J. Newton, 42, was sentenced to 40 years in prison and was ordered to pay $400,000 in restitution to the child. His boyfriend, Peter Truong, 36, pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing.

The couple bought the child from his Russian mother for $8,000 in 2005.

Investigators say Newton and Truong flew the boy between Australia, the United States, France and Germany to record at least eight other pedophiles sexually abuse him.

They shared images and videos on their perverted network, which specialized in depictions of boys between 6 and 8 years old, federal prosecutors said.

“Personally … I think this is probably the worst (pedophile) rings … if not the worst ring I’ve ever heard of,” investigator Brian Bone of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service told Australia’s Seven News.

Newton addressed the U.S. federal courtroom in Indiana in shackles Friday. His voice quavered as he said, “being a father was an honor and a privilege that amounted to the best six years of my life.”

U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker responded, “Words don’t help … What can be said? What can be done to erase some of the horror of this?”

The exploitation, Barker says, deserves a harsher punishment, but she did not want to scar jurors by showing them the repulsive images and videos.

One video discovered this week is said to show Newton performing a sex act on the boy when he was less than two weeks old.

“These men submitted this young child to some of the most heinous acts of exploitation that this office has ever seen,” said Indiana U.S. Attorney Joe Hogsett, after the hearing.

Newton and Truong lived with the boy in Los Angeles. They brainwashed the child to believe that sexual abuse what normal behavior, Baker said.

Australian authorities suspect that the men used the same techniques on other children.

The Queensland Police Task Force Argos, an Australian service branch that targets child exploitation, suspected Newton and Truong of wrongdoings when investigators found images of them with the child among images of the child porn on a fellow sex offender’s computer in August 2011.

Argos conducted background checks and examined the couple’s chat logs. The task force uncovered communication with other sexual predators and contacted their U.S. counterparts.

U.S. police raided the men’s Los Angeles home and arrested them in October 2011. The child was placed in the care of an American family, reported Seven News.

Initially, Newton and Truong claimed they were being targeted because of their sexual orientation. The head of the Queensland task force, Detective Inspector Jon Rouse, roundly dismissed this accusation.

“If you’re harming a child — I don’t care what your gender is — we will take action. Our interest is the child, not your sexual preference,” said Rouse.