A judge on Thursday threw out a woman’s restraining order against the former principal of a Lewiston elementary school after police charged her with making false allegations of sexual misconduct and violence against him.
The ruling in the case involving Donald K. Ferrara Jr. of Greene, the former principal of Robert V. Connors Elementary School in Lewiston, is a rare example of the courts dealing with claims against a public official that have been deemed false. Studies have shown that the prevalence of false sexual assault allegations is fairly rare at between 2 percent and 10 percent.
In December, a judge in Wiscasset granted the woman’s restraining order against Ferrara, concluding that he committed sexual assault. But police and other investigators from the Lewiston district had investigated her allegations against Ferrara going back a decade, with the internal investigation finding no evidence of contact between the two since 2012.
Just over a month after that order went into effect, the woman, 29-year-old Heidi Towle of Dresden, contacted the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office to report that Ferrara had sent her threatening text messages. But the deputy assigned to the case found that Towle had sent them to herself. She was charged in February with stalking and filing a false report.
That same month, deputies with the Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Office filed similar charges against Towle stemming from her report in November that Ferrara threatened to kill her as well as her mother and goats and drugged her with a bottle of purple liquid. Tests revealed no drugs in her system, and Ferrara had an alibi for that day. She also admitted other false reports.
All of those findings led Ferrara’s lawyer, Walter McKee, to ask a Wiscasset court in May to dismiss the two-year protection order against Towle. Judge Kate Dufour did so on Monday.
“It is everyone’s worst nightmare being accused like this,” McKee wrote in an email. “The fact that this allegation got as far as it did is incredible. But in the end justice was done.”
Ferrara was on paid leave from his principal job around the time the protection order was issued in December. McKee said he was “forced to resign” in early April because of Towle’s allegations. Lewiston Superintendent Jake Langlais did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In December, Ferrara denied the allegations from Towle and from another woman who filed for a protection from abuse order last July, citing Ferrara’s history of abusing her. She dismissed that request before a hearing, and he was never charged with a crime.
