BANGOR (AP) – The former editor of the now defunct Maine Times magazines is suing the publication’s owner for one year’s salary.

Bradford Ketchum Jr. of Orono recently filed a lawsuit against Christopher Hutchins, Maine Times Publishing Co. and Alternative Energy Inc. in hopes of receiving $120,000 in severance pay.

Ketchum said an agreement he reached with Hutchins before moving to Maine to run the magazine’s editorial content entitled him to severance after the magazine ceased publication last January.

Other ex-staffers as well as freelance writers and photographers have filed lawsuits in small claims court in Bangor, according to Warren Silver, Ketchum’s Bangor attorney.

King Fish Media of Salem, Mass., also has filed a lawsuit in Massachusetts seeking payment for design work.

Ketchum’s son, Bradford W. Ketchum III, is director of marketing and sales for the Salem, Mass.-based firm that worked on redesigning the Maine Times as a magazine.

Hutchins and the Maine Times also are being sued in New Jersey for $72,000 in unpaid bills for design work by Big Designs, according to Silver.

The lawsuits are the latest twist in the long, slow demise of the Maine Times, which was founded in 1968 as an alternative weekly newspaper by journalist Peter Cox and the late John N. Cole.

Hutchins purchased the Maine Times in 1999 and continued to publish it as a weekly newspaper for three years. In 2002, he closed the newspaper and decided launch Maine Times in a magazine format.

The magazine appeared on newsstands in April 2003. The glossy magazine didn’t last long; it shut down on Jan. 19, 2004.



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