A Bar Harbor man whose name will appear on the ballot for the local Town Council elections in June has a criminal conviction for theft.
Keith N. Goodrich, 55, was indicted in February 2015 by a Hancock County grand jury on a felony charge of theft and a misdemeanor charge of unemployment fraud.
At the time, the county’s district attorney said Goodrich collected more than $18,000 in unemployment insurance benefits over a four-year period. He was alleged to have filed weekly claims while he was working and to have not reported that he was in fact employed, the district attorney said.
In December of that same year, Goodrich reached a plea deal with prosecutors, according to court documents on file at the Hancock County courthouse in Ellsworth. In exchange for pleading to a misdemeanor charge of theft, prosecutors dismissed the felony theft charge and the unemployment fraud charge.
Goodrich pleaded no contest to the misdemeanor theft charge and repaid the full amount of $18,295 to the Maine Department of Labor. He was sentenced to serve 30 days in the Hancock County Jail in Ellsworth, according to court documents.
Goodrich did not respond to a voicemail message left Friday at a phone number listed in Bar Harbor’s voter registration records on file at the town clerk’s office. No one came to the front door of his house when a reporter knocked Friday afternoon.
Goodrich is one of 11 candidates who filed paperwork at the town clerk’s office last week to run for Bar Harbor Town Council in local elections on June 13.
Goodrich and three other candidates — Brooke Blomquist, Earl Brechlin and Charles Sidman — are running for a two-year term that was created to fill out the remainder of a three-year term that former Councilor Jeff Dobbs was elected to last June. Dobbs resigned in March due to health reasons.
Clark Stivers, who was appointed to fill Dobbs’ former seat until the June election, is not running to keep the seat.
Seven other candidates are running for three other council seats, each for a three-year term. There are a total of seven seats on the council.
