Police continue to hew to Leonard Leo's claims without full knowledge of protestors' rights
NORTHEAST HARBOR, June 27, 2023 - Police were looking to clarify whether protesters indeed trespassed on dark money operative Leonard Leo’s property Sunday when they issued warnings after several “criminal complaints” were filed.
No arrests were made.
Capt. David Kerns confirmed today he has been advised by assessor Kyle Avila that public roads in Maine have a 33-foot easement - or 16.5 feet from the center of the road on both sides which may be accessed by the protesters.
The QSJ reported two years ago that the state DOT lawyers ordered neighbors of Charlotte’s Legendary Lobster Pound in Manset to remove a fence and boulders placed on the side of the road to discourage parking by customers, citing the existence of such an easement.
On Sunday at 4:05 p.m., officer Elias Burne and another officer responded to several complaints of “trespassing and individuals obstructing the roadway on south shore Road.”
Witnesses said they told the protesters they were trespassing on land owned by Leo. However, Avila said Leo may own the land, but the easement still gives the protesters the right to stand within16.5 feet from the center of the road.
Kerns said the police on Sunday did not have that information. Several protesters moved to the other side after being told to move, but several stayed on the gravel well within the 16-feet boundary, witnesses said.
The town should give Leo frequency rewards as the top user of police services in town ever since protesters began planting themselves in front of his home at 46 South Shore Road after the Supreme Court overturned Roe Vs. Wade last summer.
On May 11, Hancock County District Attorney Robert Granger dismissed a disorderly conduct charge last July against a 22-year-old protester telling the local constabulary essentially to stop wasting his time and to bring real crimes. That arrest occurred also on a Sunday.
“One of my primary goals has been to focus our attention on prosecutions involving violent offenders rather than getting bogged down in cases in which reasonable persons could arrive at different opinions,” Granger wrote.
“We have far more serious cases to focus our attention on such as drug trafficking that results in overdose deaths, sexual assaults, manslaughter cases, kidnapping, robberies, burglaries and the like. We are currently short one prosecutor and our case load is up over 27% from this same time last year. As of May 5, 2023, we have 1,602 cases pending in Prosecutorial District 7, (Hancock and Washington Counties). Our caseload is up 53.3% in Hancock County over May 2019, and Washington County cases are up 27.1% during that same period. Our staffing has gone unchanged. In short, we are stretched to the limit right now.
“If we are to make serious efforts to tackle the case backlog problem, hard decisions must be made. Those decisions are sometimes difficult for victims to appreciate but if we don’t get our caseload under control the entire system will collapse.
“Even if a jury found conduct criminal here, it was on the de minimis side of the equation. I could not imagine a Court would impose anything other than a small fine on a conviction. Hence, this case was on the lower end of our priority list.”
See the video of the ugly arrest last year:
The Sunday protest was organized to acknowledge the anniversary of the overturn of Roe V. Wade. Protesters circulated this website stating their grievances against Leo.
Even in the rain, the protest drew one of the largest crowds since it began. Reporters were there from ProPublica, The New Yorker and MSNBC.
Here is a video of Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” conducting interviews:
Mr. Leonard Leo should be counting his blessings. If the original founders of this country were alive today he'd have more that a few folks calling him bad names. In fact were Thomas Paine still around Leo would probably be covered in tar and riding out of town on a rail rather than a Mercedes. It is so sad to see how much American Democracy has decayed since the founding of this country. When low life’s like Leo and his pals can pack the Supreme Court with members of the corporate radical right thereby allowing hideous legal decisions like "Citizens United" to stand memories of The Boston Tea Party come flooding back. Simply put the founders of this country tossed all that tea into Boston Harbor largely in protest of the corporate monopoly on American tea imports of the East India Company. What one wonders would the founders think of Leo backed "Citizens United" via which the Supreme Court ruled that restraining corporate Dark Money contributions to (eg "purchase of") of our political representatives would constitute an abridgment of corporate free speech? The whole idea of American corporations lacking "free speech" opportunities would be laughable were it not so dangerous. Our nation is daily deluged in "Corporate Speak" via a never ending barrage of TV, newspaper, magazine, radio and Internet ads! Our children are brainwashed into endless wasteful consumption and sold on the idea that "Whoever dies with the most toys wins!" Those suffering painful and debilitating illnesses are deluged with ads for expensive medications with a list of side effects that often make the illness being treated pale in comparison. What we need is legislation protecting us from endless corporate manipulation not only by protecting the rights of citizens like this to protest, but encouraging more of it. Protests like this will stop when people like Leonard Leo are the ones being cuffed and perp walked to the police car. And for heaven's sake officer make sure Leonard ducks his head while getting into the back seat.
Leonard Leo has not only influenced corrupt police officers to do his bidding, (rather than follow directives from police leadership to abide by the Constitution and Maine Criminal Code.) The Bar Harbor Town Council supported Bar Harbor Town Manager Kevin Sutherland in using his office and town resources to suppress a First Amendment protected and Maine Criminal Code compliant protest (against Leo's corruption of the courts.) To this day, the BH Town Council has refused to give an accounting of Sutherland's actions and The Mount Desert Islander has refused to correct reporting which amplifies and perpetuates Sutherland's erroneous assertions of the law and erroneous representations of the protest.