Oxford County commissioners allowed a local deputy to resign on Thursday after he was arrested for violating a protection from abuse order that prohibited him from carrying firearms. His resignation ended a five-month leave of absence from the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office that began when the no-contact order was issued against him, during which the deputy continued to collect a paycheck.
Matthew Steinort’s resignation prompted a debate among county leaders over whether police should be allowed to resign when they face allegations of misconduct. Ahead of accepting his resignation on Thursday, one county commissioner expressed concern about officers being able to dodge accountability for alleged misconduct.
“I feel like we should be doing something instead of saying, ‘We’ll gladly take your resignation, and we’re so glad the problem walked away.’ Because maybe we are just handing that problem off to another place,” Commissioner Lisa Keim said during the county commissioners meeting.
Steinort’s wife, Kera Steinort, who obtained the protection from abuse order against him, questioned in an interview why Oxford County hadn’t severed ties with her husband sooner.
“My life is in shambles right now because of all this, and yet I feel like he’s able to still go on like nothing has happened,” she said.
She called it “insane” that the county kept him employed after a judge granted her a temporary no-contact order in October, followed by a final no-contact order in November. During a court hearing, she described how her husband emotionally and physically abused her, prompting the judge to bar him from contacting her or handling weapons for two years.
In an interview on Thursday, Matthew Steinort did not deny that he violated the protection order, although he said he wasn’t abusive toward his wife. He said he tried to communicate with his wife through her teenage daughter, which is considered indirect contact.
“I had texted her saying, ‘Have your mom drop the PFA, so I can go to [your athletic] games,’ and ‘Drop the relinquishment, so I can go back to work.’ I panicked,” Matthew Steinort said, adding that he didn’t know what to do with his life outside of policing or serving in the military.
After the county placed him on leave in October because of the no-contact order, he said the sheriff’s office opened an internal investigation, but there were “no findings because there was no actual abuse.” The county’s administrative office confirmed Matthew Steinort was not disciplined.
He also attended a 30-day mental health and addiction treatment center in Maryland, ending in December, he said, although he still couldn’t work while the court prohibited him from having a gun. He ultimately decided to give his two-week notice on March 24, he said.
Oxford County Sheriff Christopher Wainwright — who faced his own investigations and near removal from elected office last year — declined to answer questions about how the internal investigation was conducted, why his deputy remained on paid administrative leave for five months, or why he wasn’t terminated after his arrest for violating the no-contact order.
On Oct. 21, Kera Steinort requested a temporary protection from abuse order against her husband, writing in her court complaint that he had previously put a gun to his head and threatened to kill either himself or her. She also described several times when she tried to talk with him about concerns about his behavior, only for him to become enraged. They had started divorce proceedings.
Once, “he grabbed my work bag and ripped it into shreds, he pushed me down on the couch, spilled my coffee all over me, and then threw the mug against the wall and shattered it. I told him I was calling the police to which he stated while laughing, ‘You think they will believe you!?’” she wrote in her complaint.
“Then I ran to the bathroom to call my mom — I reported what happened to her and also to my boss because I was going to be late and they are willing to testify to this. I also have text message proof of him telling me not to come home because I would be safer at my moms during our last argument,” she continued.
Matthew Steinort contested the allegations, though he said he did try to kill himself with a gun in front of his wife. In an interview, he said he suffers from post-traumatic stress from serving two overseas tours in Afghanistan with the U.S. Army, and from shooting and killing a 23-year-old man in Rumford in 2023 who had pointed a gun at officers. He also has a traumatic brain injury, he said, and now plans to live off disability payments he gets due to the injuries he sustained in combat.
But at a November court hearing, a judge found it was likely that he had abused his wife and barred him from contacting her for two years, according to a court order. Matthew Steinort was also forced to relinquish his five pistols and five long guns, which he stored with the sheriff’s office, according to court records.
Kera Steinort filed for the no-contact order three days after her husband first tried to pursue one against her. A judge dismissed his complaint because he failed to prove any abuse by her, court records show.
In the months after her husband was placed on leave, she said she was never contacted by the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office as part of any internal investigation related to her allegations of abuse. She had previously hesitated to bring forward complaints about her husband because he is a police officer, she said, and she believed his colleagues would protect him.
“I just felt like there was nobody I could talk to or turn to about it because they were never going to believe me. That’s one of the things he would tell me,” she said. “They’re a brotherhood. They all have each other’s backs. Even when someone is doing something wrong, they still have their back, and I don’t think that’s right.”
Then, on March 26, the Maine State Police arrested Matthew Steinort in Mexico, where he lives, for violating the no-contact order, said Shannon Moss, a spokesperson for the Maine Department of Public Safety. He was taken to the Cumberland County Jail in Portland, where he stayed for two days until he made his $400 cash bail, according to the jail.
Kera Steinort said that her husband should have known better than to try to pressure her to change her no-contact order.
She provided the text messages he sent to her daughter over four days. In one he wrote, “Okay, will you talk to her about the guns for me? So I can at least go to work?” When the daughter told him not to get his hopes up, Matthew Steinort replied, “Okay, thank you, we can keep the PFA just the guns.”
County commissioners must vote to accept all staff resignations as a matter of policy. At their Thursday meeting, they talked about whether to consider a new practice of terminations in lieu of resignations — avoiding discussing Matthew Steinort by name — before deciding to get more of a legal opinion on the matter.
Commissioners Timothy Turner and H. Sawin Millett Jr. raised questions about whether the county could keep someone employed against their wishes.
But Keim worried about how the county should deal with employees — in particular, police — who resign to avoid being disciplined or fired.
“They just keep going from place to place, and nothing ever sticks because no one goes through the full process of going through an investigation,” she said.
“I don’t want to be part of that problem,” Keim continued, raising the question of whether the county could continue to pursue internal investigations against employees after they resign.
(In 2022, the Maine State Police changed its policy to address the issue Keim raised. The state agency now has a policy to complete internal investigations even if an employee resigns before a finding is reached and make any resulting discipline public.)
After a closed-door executive session, the commissioners unanimously voted to accept Matthew Steinort’s resignation, effective immediately. When voting, they said their decision would not preclude the county from conducting an internal investigation. Because of union guidelines, they agreed to continue to pay him until April 7, County Administrator Zane Loper said.
Asked why Matthew Steinort wasn’t fired after his recent arrest, Loper stressed the importance of due process. What’s more, he said he believed the sheriff’s office was conducting another internal investigation.
Bangor Daily News editor Michael Shepherd contributed to this story.
