Lewiston judge orders protection order against former DA candidate

LEWISTON — A judge issued a two-year order Friday against Seth Carey, a suspended Auburn attorney and failed Republican candidate for district attorney, barring him from having contact with a woman who claimed to be his ex-girlfriend.

Eighth District Court Judge Charles Dow approved the protection from abuse consent between Carey and the woman that was made without findings of abuse.

Although Carey had denied he had dated the woman, the order states that the two “are dating partners or plaintiff is a victim of defendant’s sexual assault or stalking.”

The Auburn woman had filed a protection from abuse order against Carey last month, accusing him of stalking her by parking in her driveway, approaching her at the gym, texting her and following her car.

Carey denied most of the accusations, admitting to a reporter that he had greeted the woman at the gym and sent her text messages seeking friendship.

The woman had written in a sworn statement that she was “scared for my safety,” because “he has been known to hurt people who walk away from him.”

The conditions of the order bar Carey from having any direct or indirect contact with the woman. He is prohibited from threatening, assaulting, molesting, attacking, harassing or otherwise abusing the woman. He also is not allowed to go to her home or workplace and may not stalk or follow her without reasonable cause.

Judge Dow also ordered Carey to remove, destroy or return private images and stop disseminating private images.

In her application for the protection order, the woman had asked a judge to force Carey to return all documents to her and “delete all pictures and not share any prints of pictures involving me.” She wrote that Carey was withholding the documents to use them “with malicious intent to harm me.”

Violating the terms of the permanent order is punishable by up to six months in jail.

In April, a Superior Court justice put Carey on interim suspension from practicing law, after a District Court judge granted a permanent protection from abuse order to a different woman, who testified that Carey had sexually assaulted her on three occasions while she lived in a spare bedroom at his Rumford house.

Superior Court Justice Thomas Warren ruled in a Portland court last month that Carey violated several Maine Bar rules, including unlawful conduct stemming from his unwanted sexual advances involving that woman, who lives in Rumford.

A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday for arguments on how Carey should be sanctioned for violating those bar rules.

Carey was the Republican nominee for district attorney for District 3, which includes Androscoggin, Franklin and Oxford counties. He lost the general election Tuesday to incumbent Andrew Robinson.

Carey had said the plaintiff in Friday’s protection order had been a campaign volunteer, not an ex-girlfriend.

cwilliams@sunjournal.com