Unwanted Touching

A justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court has ordered a three-year suspension of an attorney who had engaged in “unwanted physical advances that rose to the level of  criminal conduct in the form of unlawful sexual touching and assault.”

He had groped a female tenant and assaulted her by “pulling her head against his crotch.”

He was also found to have both intentionally and negligently violate an order of interim suspension, in one respect for running for the office of District Attorney while suspended .

The judge further found he had engaged in witness tampering by – through his counsel – attempting to pay off the complainant in the bar case.

And his filing of a “baseless” lawsuit against the the persons involved in the bar prosecution was an aggravating factor. 

The Lewiston Sun Journal reported on the judge’s findings

Carey, 43, who lives in Auburn, but owns a house in Rumford, was suspended from practicing law in Maine in 2016, but was able to get that suspension lifted by agreeing to specific conditions. In April, the board filed a petition for his immediate suspension in connection with the claims made by the woman who lived at his home. The court ordered an interim suspension after reviewing the evidence presented in district court during the protection from abuse hearing.

In his recent findings filed Friday, Warren focused on three events that took place at Carey’s Rumford house.

During Thanksgiving 2017, the woman was awakened in the middle of the night to find Carey’s hands touching her legs and between her thighs. He suggested she sleep with him. She told him to leave her room. He did.

In 2018, Carey tried to pull the woman into his bedroom and proposed having sex. Another time, the woman was sitting on the couch when Carey “stepped in front of her, pulled her head against his crotch and in crude terms requested oral sex.”

(Mike Frisch)