PORTLAND (AP) — In a year-old defamation case, Maine’s highest court has ruled against a Republican who is running for district attorney and feels the suspension of his law license was unfair.

Last year, Seth Carey filed a wide-ranging complaint in Kennebec County Superior Court in Augusta against the Board of Overseers of the Bar and Bar Counsel Scott Davis, the Lewiston Sun Journal, the Maine Commission on Indigent Legal Services, and a number of judges, attorneys and court clerks related to the disciplinary proceedings that resulted in his two-year suspension in 2016.

A lower court granted motions to dismiss early this year, and Carey appealed. The Maine Supreme Judicial ruled Thursday that it affirms the lower court’s order to dismiss.

The claims against the Sun Journal also included violation of privacy, conspiracy and racketeering. All 12 counts filed against the Sun Journal were dismissed, as were all counts filed against all named defendants, including a complaint of malicious prosecution.

Carey is fighting five unrelated complaints brought by Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar based upon allegations that he sexually abused a woman who rented a room in his Rumford home then proposed paying her to drop her complaint and recant her earlier court testimony after a judge had signed a two-year order for protection from abuse against Carey.

Carey is running against Andrew Robinson for district attorney of Androscoggin, Franklin and Oxford counties. Carey’s license was suspended after a woman secured a protection from abuse order against him after accusing him of sexual abuse.

Carey and his lawyer did not immediately return calls and emails seeking comment about the ruling.

Seth Carey paces in the Portland Superior Court courtroom before his disbarment hearing Wednesday afternoon. (Andree Kehn/Sun Journal)

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