Eliot Cutler, who nearly was elected Maine’s governor in 2010 and recently served a jail sentence for possession of child pornography, has registered with the state as a sex offender.
Cutler, 77, is listed as a lifetime registrant for his conviction on four counts of possession of sexually explicit material of a child under 12. He registered on Jan. 18, the same day he was released from Hancock County Jail in Ellsworth, and is required to verify his address in Brooklin again in three months, according to information on the state’s sex offender registry website.
Cutler’s sentence imposed a jail term of nine months and an overall sentence of four years, with six years of probation. If he violates his probation, which requires him to stay up to date on his registry status, he could be incarcerated for the remainder of his suspended sentence.
His probation also prohibits him from possessing pornography of any kind, or accessing the internet by any device that is not connected to an internet monitoring service that documents his online activity. He also is not allowed to have contact with any minor children except his grandchildren and their friends when another adult is present.
After pleading guilty, Cutler began serving his sentence June 1, 2023, at the county jail because only sentences longer than nine months are served at state prisons. He was released about five weeks early because of state laws that allow inmates to earn “good time” credit for good conduct while serving their sentence.
Cutler, a Bangor native who became wealthy as an attorney specializing in environmental law, was nearly elected as an independent in 2010, when he came within 9,800 votes of beating Paul LePage.
He was arrested in March 2022 at his home in Brooklin in Hancock County, after police received a tip about a download of child pornography that was traced to his address, according to previous reporting. After obtaining a search warrant, police found 142,000 pornographic images and videos of children saved on his electronic devices, according to court documents.
