Former Maine Gubernatorial Candidate Arrested On Child Pornography Charges

A lawyer who ran twice for governor of Maine was arrested on Friday for possession of child pornography.

Eliot Cutler, faces four counts of possession of sexually explicit material of a minor under 12 after investigators found 10 files of children being exploited on his computer, according to The Portland Press Herald.

75yrs-old Cutler may face additional charges as cops continued to look through terabytes of data on devices seized from two of the former Independent candidate’s homes, the article said.

Officials arrested Cutler at his farm in Brooklin even as the probe continued, prosecutors said. He was being held on $50,000 bail.

“Given the incredibly high bail of $50,000 cash, set on a Friday night after banks are closed no less, it is unclear whether the bail will be posted,” Cutler’s attorney Walt McKee told the newspaper.

The investigation stemmed from a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that someone in Maine had downloaded or uploaded an illegal image, the report said.

“It was a known piece of child pornography,” Hancock County District Attorney Matt Foster told the paper.

Cutler’s defense attorney confirmed the arrest but declined further comment Friday. Cutler also declined comment this week.

The arrest following a two-month investigation was a shock in Maine, where Cutler is a well-known political figure and wealthy attorney.

Cutler battled to a close finish in the governor’s race in 2010, losing to Republican Paul LePage by less than 2 percentage points. Four years later, he came in a distant third place, behind LePage and Democrat Michael Michaud.

After running for governor, Cutler oversaw the establishment of a Professional and Graduate Center initiative for the University of Maine System that combined several areas of study.

In Washington, Cutler served as an aide to the late Democratic U.S. Sen. Edmund Muskie and later as former Democratic President Jimmy Carter’s top adviser for environmental and energy issues.

Cutler went on to serve as an environmental attorney and helped found a law firm in Washington, D.C.

The Bangor native later returned to Maine and resided in Cape Elizabeth, where he owned a mansion that he later sold for $7.55 million to a nephew of former President George H.W. Bush.

On Wednesday, law enforcement officials searched his current homes, a townhome on Pine Street in Portland’s West End and an 1850 farmhouse on the waterfront in Brooklin.

Cutler resigned the same day from the Lerner Foundation’s board of directors “for personal reasons,” said Don Carpenter, executive director of the nonprofit that helps rural students attend college.

He was previously involved in “high-level strategy and governance” and didn’t come into direct contact with students, Carpenter said.

Cutler, a former member of President Jimmy Carter’s administration, ran for governor in 2010 and 2014 after working as a Washington DC attorney.

He resigned from his post as president of the board of the Lerner Foundation, which encourages rural students to go to college, on Wednesday, following a raid on one of his homes.

“We were deeply disturbed to learn about the serious allegations brought against Eliot Cutler today,” the foundation’s executive director, Don Carpenter, wrote in an email on Friday, the Herald reported.

“In his former role on the board of directors, Eliot was involved in high-level strategy and governance and did not directly interface with students who participated in grant-funded programming.”