Former Maine gubernatorial candidate Eliot Cutler is accused of seeking an escort online and having two unauthorized cellphones, which authorities say are violations of his probation on a 2023 conviction for possessing sexually explicit images of children.
A probation officer asked a Hancock County Superior Court judge to revoke Cutler’s probation, as first reported by The Ellsworth American. Cutler, 79, is due in court on Dec. 16 for a hearing on the probation violation charge, according to a probation summons.
In September, Cutler allegedly used an external USB drive to access content about massage parlors in San Francisco and answered questions online about “what he would prefer sexually in an escort,” according to the probation officer’s affidavit.
The affidavit, released by a spokesperson for the Maine Judicial Branch on Wednesday morning, says this “coincided with a request from Cutler for a travel permit to go to California to see elderly friends.”
The affidavit also says Cutler met with a probation officer in October and turned over two cellphones that weren’t being monitored, which authorities allege was also a violation of his probation terms. A third-party company monitors Cutler’s internet use on his devices and he is banned from accessing sexually explicit materials, according to his probation conditions.
The phones were brought to the state’s computer crimes unit, which, according to the affidavit, “found nothing on the phones of note but also (noted) the phones had been reset.”
Cutler and his attorney, Walter McKee, declined to comment on the allegations in separate emails to the Press Herald on Wednesday. McKee said Cutler’s probation conditions remain the same. He said there is no court order for Cutler to be taken into custody.
Hancock County District Attorney Bob Granger said in an email Wednesday that he couldn’t provide additional information about the allegations.
Cutler pleaded guilty in 2023 to possessing thousands of sexually explicit images of children and was sentenced to nine months in jail. He was released two months early, in January 2024, for good behavior and has since been serving a six-year probation period.
Investigators have said Cutler had more than 80,000 images of children younger than 12 being sexually abused.
Cutler ran twice for Maine governor, in 2010 and 2014. He also worked in Washington, D.C., as a longtime attorney, public servant and co-founder of an environmental law firm. He was disbarred in both New York and Maine following his guilty plea.
