The election for a new District Attorney in the corruption-plagued Ellsworth, Maine jurisdiction is just days away.
After five years of scandal, investigations and ultimately the sanctioning of prosecutor Mary Kellett, whose license to practice law was suspended by the State Supreme Court for 7 counts of misconduct, the Ellsworth office is about to get new leadership.
Or is it?
Those who have followed the legal terrorism committed by that office are likely very aware that Mary Kellett still has a job there with full confidence of current DA Carletta Bassano. She will undoubtedly keep that job if her co-worker and co-conspirator William B. Entwistle is elected to fill DA Bassano’s derelict shoes on the 6th of next month.
It’s simple. If Entwistle wins, it is business as usual in Ellsworth, Maine, and that office will continue to legally persecute anything in jeans with a “no-drop” prosecutions policy.
This really shouldn’t be a problem, because both Bassano and Entwistle are now under investigation by the Maine Bar of Overseers for prosecutorial misconduct. And it is largely for the same conduct that Mary Kellett has made her bread and butter for as long as she has been in that office.
Integrity4Maine has filed a complaint based on three separate prosecutions that all involve the expected modus operandi of an Ellsworth prosecutor: Withholding exculpatory evidence and failure to comply with discovery in order to get convictions. Entwistle even showed some creativity by stating he did not provide discovery because it was not requested.
In Maine, prosecutor’s discovery is automatically mandated by law. This is the guy seeking election to run the whole show in Ellsworth. The guy who apparently doesn’t know the law.
But as I said, this all shouldn’t be a problem. Surely the local media, particularly the Bangor Daily News, would find it interesting that the supervisor of the first prosecutor in the history of Maine to have their license suspended, and the office insider who is running to take charge when that supervisor steps down, would be interested in this story. After all, it was Bangor Daily News that ran story after story on Vladek Filler and the bizarre saga of Mary Kellett.
Surely they are following up on this and advising citizens in that area that something appears, well, stinky in the whole lot of them occupying that office.
Think again. It is suddenly mumsville for the Bangor Daily News. I have received confirmation from several sources that journalist Bill Trotter, who covered much of the Filler-Kellett affair, and other reporters at BDN had been contacted various times to prompt the paper to do its job.
Crickets are chirping.
In fact, not one media source in the State of Maine that we can find has the least bit of interest in the fact that a prosecutor’s office with one proven bad apple, quite possibly has a rotten bushel.
Maybe it is some sort of civic pride thing. Let the gangstas gang long as all the right people look the other way. Of course, that is speculation alone. Speculation is what we are all left with when journalists are part of the looking the other way problem. It is a problem they share with state legislators, judges, and other prosecutors.
There is one certainty, though. Bar investigations move a lot slower than the upcoming election. I expect Carletta Bassano and Slick Willie figure they got it made like rats in a cheese factory. I bet Bill Trotter would agree, whether he wanted to or not.
And they do have it made if the people of Ellsworth, Maine don’t quit looking the other way.
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