Somerset County officials recently hired a former Maine State Prison supervisor to oversee programs at the local jail despite initial concerns about his past participation in what the prison had called an “inappropriate” group chat with other prison guards.
The county’s five commissioners voted unanimously last week to make Evan Touchette the programs manager for the Somerset County Jail in Madison, according to a county official and a draft copy of the March 19 meeting minutes.
At his previous jobs, state corrections officials disciplined Touchette in the fall of 2022 after discovering he had participated in a Facebook Messenger chat where officers disparaged inmates, joked about using force against them, made offensive comments about minorities and the prison administration, criticized coronavirus safety protocols and shared confidential information.
The chat was between members of the prison’s medium security unit, where Touchette was as supervisor until becoming the manager of the prison’s intensive mental health unit.
The episode came to light publicly in early 2023 after the Bangor Daily News obtained a transcript of the chat. The chat began in mid-2019, and the 2,500-page transcript ended in early 2021.
Somerset County Administrator Tim Curtis said in a Friday interview that county officials became aware of the matter late into the process of hiring Touchette for a supervisor job at the jail, but he put their concerns to rest when a group of them questioned him about it in private.
Curtis did not elaborate on the details of the conversation because it took place during a 48-minute confidential executive session before the vote to hire Touchette, which county officials were allowed to conduct outside of public view because it involved a personnel matter.
County staff turned off a livestream of their meeting when they entered executive session and then did not turn it back on when they resumed the public portion of their meeting to vote to hire Touchette because the IT department had gone home for the day, Curtis said. So the vote was only observed by those who attended the meeting in person, and there is no recording of it. However, commissioners didn’t publicly discuss the hire before voting, he said.
“Everyone was in agreement that this individual deserved a second chance,” Curtis said, referring to the county’s five elected commissioners, the county sheriff, the jail administrator, a representative from the county’s human resources department and himself.
County commissioners Robert Sezak, Cyprien Johnson, Scott Seekins and Joel Stetkis did not return phone calls seeking interviews. Commissioner John Alsop declined to comment and referred questions to Curtis when reached on the phone Friday. Jail Administrator Michael Welch, who oversaw most of Touchette’s hiring process, also declined to comment.
In an email Friday, Touchette told a reporter that he welcomed the opportunity to discuss his new employment but would first need to seek approval to do so. (He did not specify from whom.)
“Through my years of experience, my perspective on the work has shifted significantly,” he wrote. “My primary focus is on helping people reach their full potential.”
But he did not reply to four follow-up emails Monday and Tuesday seeking a time to schedule an interview.
Touchette left his job at the Maine State Prison in mid-August, said Sam Prawer, a spokesperson for the Maine Department of Corrections, which runs the facility in Warren.
He emerged this month as one of two finalists from a pool of five candidates who applied for the programs manager job at the Somerset County Jail, which requires supervising mental health and substance use treatment programs, said Curtis, the county administrator. The jail has received national attention for its efforts to treat the high rates of opioid addiction among prisoners.
Welch was prepared to offer Touchette the position after an interview on March 14, and told him it would first require approval by the county’s elected commissioners. He sent an email to staff that afternoon announcing that Touchette would be the jail’s new program manager and would start work on March 31, according to a copy of the email.
But sometime after the interview, Welch Googled Touchette and discovered the BDN article about his participation in the group chat, Curtis said.
The article reported that Maine State Prison officials disciplined him in October 2022 with “a written suspension” for sharing confidential information about prisoners, having inappropriate discussions with his co-workers and failing to report the misconduct of his subordinates, which he was required to do as a supervisor.
The article specifically referred to Touchette joking about using pepper spray on inmates and going “liberal hunting” with another officer. He referred to people who wore masks indoors during the pandemic as “sheep,” though he was currently a sergeant at a congregate living facility where state policy required masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Welch called Touchette over the weekend to discuss the article and “the obvious concerns it raised,” Curtis said. County staff and commissioners then questioned him about it during last week’s executive session.
Curtis described the conversation as a thorough vetting, adding that people who work in law enforcement and corrections “are confronted every day with opportunity and expectation to give people second chances.”
When pressed for more detail, he said: “I don’t want to use his words but I know he expressed to commissioners that he owned those statements, and he expressed that they were wrong.”
Reporter Callie Ferguson may be reached at [email protected].
