PORTLAND – A Maine Supreme Judicial Court judge has ruled that a candidate for District Attorney of the prosecutorial district that encompasses Franklin County violated state bar rules.
Seth T. Carey, an Auburn resident, became the Republican nominee for District Attorney in District 3 after he defeated Alex Willette in the primary in June. District 3 consists of Franklin, Androscoggin and Oxford County. Carey is challenging Democratic candidate and incumbent DA Andrew Robinson, a Farmington resident, for the position.
In 2016, Carey received a two-year suspension from practicing law following a disciplinary proceeding. That suspension was itself suspended, subject to Carey complying with the conditions of a consent agreement. The Board of Overseers of the state bar filed a petition in April to terminate that suspension and impose the two-year sanction. An immediate interim suspension of Carey’s ability to practice law in Maine was also filed.
The petition for an immediate interim suspension was based off a protection from abuse proceeding held on March in Oxford County District Court in Rumford. The judge at that hearing granted the protection order for the complainant, a woman that had been staying in a Rumford home owned by Carey.
In a hearing held in April, the Board of Overseers’ petition for an immediate interim suspension was granted after the court reviewed the audio recording of the protection from abuse hearing. In the decision dated Sept. 21, Justice Thomas Warren said that the court “found that Attorney Carey’s conducted threatened imminent injury to the public and the administration of justice.”
As a result, Carey’s license to practice law is currently suspended. Maine law requires that District Attorneys be able to practice law in the state; per the Maine Revised Statutes: “Only attorneys admitted to the general practice of law in this State and who reside in the prosecutorial district may be elected or appointed district attorney.”
A three-day hearing was held in August, addressing conduct alleged by the Board of Overseers, as well as the petition to impose the two-year suspension. Warren issued findings relating to the alleged sexual assaults, Carey’s alleged failure to comply with the suspension order, alleged witness tampering and other allegations.
In regard to the alleged sexual assaults, Warren focused on three incidents that involved a woman staying at a home owned by Carey in Rumford. In one case that allegedly occurred around Thanksgiving 2017, the woman “woke up when she felt Carey’s hands touching her legs and between her thighs,” according to Warren’s findings. “He then suggested she sleep with him. She told him to get out of her room and he left.”
The other two incidents were in 2018, according to Warren. In one, Carey allegedly tried to pull the woman into his bedroom while proposing they have sex. The other involved Carey allegedly stepping in front of the woman while she was seated on a couch, pulling her head to his crotch and asking for oral sex in “crude terms.”
Carey is also alleged to have engaged in witness tampering by presenting the woman’s counsel in June with documents that would resulted in her retracting her testimony in exchange for Carey’s car. Furthermore, if Carey’s license to practice law was reinstated by Oct. 1, the woman would have received $1,000.
Indicating that Carey’s conduct was “prejudicial to the administration of justice,” Warren wrote that: “In this instance there can be no dispute that Carey’s conduct reflected adversely on his honesty, trustworthiness, and fitness as a lawyer in violation of Rule 8.4(b).”
Regarding Carey’s alleged failure to comply with the suspension order, Warren’s ruling included findings that Carey had two conversations with another attorney regarding a case against the town of Dexter in which Carey “acknowledged he had been suspended but stated he was calling as a paralegal” and continued to discuss the merits of the case.
“… The court finds that Carey was not just tiptoeing along the line with respect to his suspension but that he stepped over the line,” Warren wrote.
In a separate case in which Carey was also purportedly acting as a paralegal, he allegedly sent emails in May and June – after the interim suspension had been issued – under the email address of “Seth T. Carey, Esq.”
Included within those allegations is part of Carey’s campaign for the Republican nomination. Warren said that at least one of Carey’s video ads expressly referred to the candidate as “Republican attorney Seth Thomas Carey” despite the suspension.
At the hearing in August, Carey’s counsel argued that Carey could serve as District Attorney by “administering the office without practicing law,” as Warren put it.
“This is difficult to accept, to say the least,” Warren wrote in Friday’s decision. “If Carey were to make prosecutorial decisions, set policy, and supervise the lawyers of the District Attorney’s Office, he would be practicing law whether or not he ever appeared in court.”
Warren indicated that Carey “knowingly disobey[ed] an obligation under the rules of a tribunal” while under the court’s interim suspension order.
Carey was also found to have violated conditions of the order that suspended his two-year suspension by not refraining from criminal conduct, referring to the Rumford allegations, and by not following a recommendations of a clinical psychologist. According to Warren’s ruling, Carey did acknowledge his problems and stated that he needed help overcoming them at the hearing on Aug. 17. He testified that he didn’t have health care to obtain the mental health treatment he needed.
“Asked why he was running for District Attorney instead of addressing these issues,” Warren indicated in a footnote attached to his ruling, “Carey both insisted he would win – without any recognition of the inconsistency between his campaign and his suspension from the practice of law – and also stated that he needed the job to get health insurance coverage so he could get treatment.”
Another hearing will be scheduled so Warren can address if sanctions should be imposed in relation to the violations.
I say write in Ragnar Huffman for DA!
Wow! It must be terrible to not have access to health care for a serious condition like this! I assume a strict regimen of thoughts and prayers will be administered?
The peoples DA. Please. He doesn’t care about anybody but himself.
This is a problem that Seth has had for a long time in his life and he should be able to get health care as he should be able to buy insurance to pay for his care. I hope that Andrew Robinson gets elected as he is better for the District Attorney job and would do a better job.
Keeping it classy.
Over kill on the signs. Over kill on the reporting.
He can afford a gazillion signs.
I have to admit that these signs that are out now are not as misleading as the ones that he previously had under S.Thomas Carey. I felt that the previous signs were misleading as he has never gone by Thomas Carey. However, his fathers name is Thomas Carey and he was a very reputable attorney. I think that he used his father’s name or rather his middle name to deflect from the trouble that he is been in. Probably hoped that people wouldn’t recognize that it was him. This man needs help and anybody would be a fool to vote for him.
Clearly the Maine GOP needs to start to do a better job of vetting it’s candidates, I know that anyone that gathers the required number of signatures can get his/her name placed on a primary ballot, I would hope that this serves as a wakeup call to the people in our area to take the primaries seriously and learn all about the candidates. To local media I ask why we never heard a single thing about this crap before June, were they just hopping that Carey would get the nomination and this would all come out so that Robinson wins by default ???
A great healthcare solution. Elect them to public office so they can get the care they need.
I’m confused. How can someone who is not eligible to be a DA be on the ballot?
Ilze,
Very simple, their (politicians) rules, or lack thereof.
Wow, this guy would have represented exactly the type of biased law enforcement and procedural ethics that I have come to know this area for. I stand surprised to see this make the Bulldog.
Frank D. Maine GOP has no say on who gets on the ballot. Anyone who gathers enough signatures is on the ballot. The voters are the ones who need to do a better job of vetting the cadidates. This story had been reported in the news prior to the primaries. There was also another highly qualified candidate on the ballot. I found it hard to comprehend why voters passed over Alex Willet and this our choice. Primaries are important – pay attention to who you give your vote. The same applies to either party.
I’m writing in Alex Willet