LEWISTON – Charles Soule doesn’t want to make big deal of Mayor Lionel Guay’s plight, even though Soule is running against the mayor in next week’s election.
Guay was charged Tuesday with three counts of unlawful sexual touching and four counts of assault on a teenage girl.
“It’s an issue between him and the plaintiff,” Soule said. “But it’s a shame that something like this has to happen to a man of his age.”
Soule admitted that he’s no angel himself. He was convicted of soliciting a prostitute in 1987, something he blames on police entrapment.
“I walked by this woman three times, and she propositioned me each time,” he said. “She was soliciting me, not the other way around.”
He was issued a summons for criminal mischief in 2001 for placing campaign handbills in places without permission and faced assault charges that same year involving a person posting opposing handbills. Both the assault and the criminal mischief charges were later dropped.
Soule believes his bid for the mayor’s chair will benefit from the charges against Guay.
“It’s divine intervention, that’s what it seems like,” he said. He’s not feeling cocky, however.
“I still have doubts that I can win,” he said. “Mr. Guay’s been in the community a long time, and a lot of people really like him. They hold him in high regard and that won’t change.”
This is the fifth time Soule has run for mayor and he has never received more than 800 votes. Campaign themes in the past have included building a replica of the Eiffel Tower to bring tourism to Lewiston, having the city assume censorship control of cable television, and firing the city administrator and having the mayor assume his duties.
His best showing was in 2003, when he picked up 7 percent of the vote. Guay won that vote handily with 76 percent. Candidate Nathan McCarron picked up 17 percent of the vote that year.
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