AUBURN – After the trial, Danielle Ramon had hoped to get on with her life.

She couldn’t.

The letters started arriving, berating her for accusing then-Lewiston Mayor Lionel Guay of groping her in his office. He had been acquitted, but has since resigned, citing stress from the situation as a major factor.

When the anonymous letters stopped coming, she hoped that would be the end of it.

It wasn’t.

Ramon, 19, learned this week that it was a retired priest who had sent her the vulgar, hate-filled mailings.

That triggered a flashback to another troubling time in her life.

She was a seventh-grade student at the former Holy Cross School in Lewiston. Classmates bullied her. She and her mother pleaded for school officials – as well as the parish priest – to address the problem. But the bullying continued, even after she transferred midyear to Auburn Middle School.

That experience was “really devastating to my self-esteem,” she said Friday in a telephone interview.

She had resolved to put the past behind her, an action she finds herself repeating again and again.

So, when a local detective called her Wednesday morning to tell her a retired priest had admitted sending her the poison-pen letters, she was “really mad, angry and upset.”

If it had been some disgruntled citizen who was a friend of Guay, she could have shrugged it off, she said.

But it wasn’t.

It was the Rev. Bertrand Poussard, 64, of Waterville. The priest who retired in 2004 after a four-year leave for medical reasons. Before that, he was chaplain at St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center. He had known Guay in Lewiston when the two were kids growing up here.

The news hit Ramon hard.

“Why, why, why?” she said. “We can’t catch a break.”

Bishop Richard Malone, who heads the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, called Ramon to apologize for his errant priest. He told her Poussard had been on extended medical leave and had a tendency to act on impulse, she said.

Malone was “trying to excuse” Poussard for his actions, Ramon said. “That really, really bothered me.”

She is seeking a written apology from Poussard. She also wants Malone to take steps toward having the church defrock the priest.

A diocese spokesman told her Friday that only the pope could do that. As for the apology, he said the diocese would try to honor her request, but was concerned that it might result in criminal charges against Poussard, Ramon said. The written notice from police warned that any more harassing letters from Poussard to Ramon could result in a charge of harassment. The diocese official told her he planned to contact Auburn police before sending the letter.

Malone announced Wednesday in a news release that Poussard would be barred from celebrating public Mass in Androscoggin County for a “period of time.”

He also said he would be seeking “personal remedial action” from Poussard, but declined to give details.

Ramon said that doesn’t go far enough.

A priest should be expected to follow the rules and the laws and “show some respect and dignity.” He failed to do that when he called her a “bitch” and “ugly” and implied she was fat and a lesbian.

“The fact that he did that is just inexcusable,” she said. “He shouldn’t be a priest.”

Told her only option was to petition the pope, she said she likely wouldn’t take that step.

Instead, she said she plans once again to focus on the future. She’s working and going to college full time. With finals coming up, that’s all the stress she needs, she said.

“Getting my life back would be really nice,” she said. “That would be a great Christmas gift.”