A deputy who has been with the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department for a little more than a year but with extensive experience in law enforcement and public service will be Sheriff Scott Kane’s next chief deputy.
Jonathan Mahon, who retired as a lieutenant from Maine State Police in 2006, will fill a position that effectively has been vacant since May, when former Chief Deputy Corey Bagley went on leave.
Bagley’s departure boiled over into an argument at a June county commissioners’ meeting when Commissioner Bill Clark, who previously served as the county’s sheriff, accused Sheriff Scott Kane of forcing Bagley out so that he could re-hire his brother, Patrick Kane, who retired from the chief deputy position last October.
Scott Kane denied the allegation, saying that Bagley was voluntarily retiring from the post. Bagley, who formally retired from the sheriff’s department last month before starting work as an Ellsworth police detective, has not commented publicly on his departure from the sheriff’s office.
Patrick Kane, who now works for a property management and development company, declined to accept the chief deputy position after commissioners — at Clark’s behest — offered him only part-time wages and no benefits. The position remained unfilled.
After leaving the state police, Mahon came out of retirement a few years ago to work for the Ellsworth Police Department, where his father worked as an officer in the 1950s. After that, he took a full-time patrol deputy position with the sheriff’s department in July 2022.
Mahon, who now lives in Surry, also has an extensive public service record outside police work. He served for many years on the Ellsworth City Council, and had separate stints on Ellsworth’s school board and recreation commission. After retiring from Maine State Police, Mahon worked in security for Northern Light Maine Coast Hospital in Ellsworth and in 2009 briefly held the position of emergency communications director for Hancock County.
On Wednesday, Kane spoke with county commissioners about approving a memorandum of understanding between the county and Mahon, who said that he wanted a written agreement with the county before accepting the chief deputy appointment.
Mahon said he wanted a commitment in writing from the county that would allow him to return to his patrol deputy position if either he or the sheriff decided the chief deputy job wasn’t a good fit.
County commissioners declined to approve such an agreement, saying that any such promise was the sheriff’s to make, not commissioners. Kane told commissioners he would go ahead and sign the memorandum of understanding on his own before formally appointing Mahon as chief deputy.
Kane said Thursday that Mahon will formally start as chief deputy Sept. 16.
“I look forward to working with him in his new position,” Kane said.