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Unlawful Sexual Contact Allegations Draw Immediate Interim Suspension Of District Attorney Candidate

By Michael Frisch

An immediate interim suspension has been imposed by a justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court

Based upon the Board submissions and the Court’s review of the audio recording of the March 30, 2018 [Protection from Abuse]  hearing and copies of the exhibits admitted at that hearing, the Court concludes that the evidence supports a finding that Attorney Carey has committed violations of the Maine Rules of Professional Conduct. At this preliminary phase of the proceedings, the Court finds that the Board’s evidence sufficiently demonstrates Attorney Carey’s violations of M. R. Prof. Conduct 8.4(b) and (d) – prohibiting unlawful conduct and conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice – to warrant an immediate interim suspension under Me. Bar R. 24.

Specifically, the testimony at the PA hearing, found credible by the District Court, supports a finding that Attorney Carey subjected the complainant – a person whom he had formerly represented – to conduct that would constitute unlawful sexual contact under 17-A M.R.S. §§ 255-A(l)(A) and 251(1)(D). The testimony also supports the District Court’s finding that on another occasion Attorney Carey grabbed the complainant’s head and thrust it toward his crotch while demanding oral sex. This latter conduct would at a minimum constitute an assault under 17-A M.R.S. § 207(l)(A).

Attorney Carey’s rebuttal to the Board’s petition basically consists of the same arguments he presented to the District Court. In his testimony at the PA hearing Attorney Carey offered only a very general denial of the complainant’s testimony with respect to the conduct referred to above. He emphasizes that there is evidence that the filing of the protection from abuse complaint followed his threat to evict the complainant from his Rumford residence. However, various emails and texts in the record substantiate that Attorney Carey was seeking to have the complainant engage in sexual activity with him and that she had refused. SeePlaintiff’s Exhibit A and Defendant’s Exhibits 18, 28, and 29 in the PA action; Exhibit A to the motion to reconsider filed by Attorney Carey in the PA action. By Attorney Carey’s own admission in an email, his eviction threat was based in part on the complainant’s refusal of his sexual advances. Defendant’s Exhibit 18. This evidence supports the complainant’s testimony.

Under the facts presented by the Board, including those previously found by the Maine District Court, the Court concludes that Attorney Carey’s misconduct is sufficiently serious to constitute a threat to clients, to the public, and to the administration of justice. This is true based on the evidence submitted with the Board’s petition and based on Attorney Carey’s disciplinary record.

The attorney is already subject to a suspended two-year suspension.

A full hearing on the allegations in the petition shall promptly be scheduled and shall be consolidated with a hearing on the Board’s petition in Docket No. BAR-16-15 to terminate the suspension of the discipline imposed on Attorney Carey in that proceeding.

Bangor Daily News  reports that he is a candidate for District Attorney,

A Republican candidate for district attorney in Maine accused of sexually abusing a former client has been suspended from practicing law in the state.

Auburn lawyer Seth Carey, who is running for district attorney in Androscoggin, Franklin and Oxford counties, was suspended from practicing law Monday by a Superior Court judge. The Portland Press Herald reports the judge found that Carey broke the rules for professional conduct.

Carey is accused of assaulting a former client in his Rumford home who was recently granted a protection from abuse order from Carey.

Carey previously said the accusation is “100 percent a false fabrication,” and has resisted calls to drop out of the race for district attorney.

The state Attorney General’s office says they are investigating the allegations.

A story from Central Maine.com. is linked here.

District attorney candidate Seth Carey “named and vilified” on social media the woman who obtained a protective order to keep him away from her, according to a statement from her lawyer.

Nicole Bissonnette, staff attorney for Pine Tree Legal Assistance in Lewiston, said her client “never sought to bring media attention to this matter, but felt it was necessary to respond to the spurious accusations made against her” by Carey in a Rumford court hearing and later at a news conference in Auburn this week.

 Carey did not name the woman, whose identity is being withheld, during the news conference, but he named her on social media posts last week. Paperwork he displayed on the courthouse steps in Auburn also contained her name…
 
Bissonnette said in a statement she released that the woman who accused Carey of sexual abuse “was not in a relationship with Mr. Carey during the time in question, when she was a tenant in his home” in Rumford.

“The parties never shared a bedroom nor engaged in any consensual relationship while they were roommates,” she said, an assessment that Carey also has endorsed.

The woman said she had to put a padlock on her bedroom door to keep him away, however, and accused him of sexually assaulting her in the living room of the house Carey owned. Carey has strongly denied any misconduct.

The judge, who heard both of them testify in regard to her request for a protective order, later ruled that Carey posed a credible threat to her safety and granted the order.

(Mike Frisch)

Posted in:
Bar Discipline & Process