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A prosecutor raised concerns last year about the candor and competence of a Maine State Police trooper at the center of a recent excessive force lawsuit in a pointed letter to the agency’s head of internal affairs.
On March 19, 2024, District Attorney Maeghan Maloney wrote a two-page letter to Capt. Jeff Love, who oversees the state police’s Office of Professional Standards, detailing concerns about Trooper Hunter Belanger, who was sued last week by a Chelsea woman for allegedly bodyslamming her to the ground and against a cruiser during an arrest that same month.
The Bangor Daily News obtained a copy of the document in which Maloney, the top prosecutor for Kennebec and Somerset counties, wrote that police had expressed concern about Belanger over his decision earlier that winter to aggressively place a man under arrest at the scene of a January 2024 fire in Readfield, potentially hampering the resulting arson case.
“The combination of factors, completely inappropriate conduct as a law enforcement officer and the subsequent effect of that conduct on a felony prosecution is more than concerning, it has raised questions of competency, job understanding, interagency cooperation and community trust,” Maloney wrote in the letter.
Maloney downplayed concerns about Belanger’s credibility when contacted by the BDN on Monday. But her letter provides a fuller picture of the concerns that she and other law enforcement officials had about the trooper and brought to the state police last winter as the agency faces mounting scrutiny over how it responds to complaints about officer misconduct.
Marie Searles, the Chelsea woman who is suing the trooper, mentioned the existence of the letter in her complaint last week as evidence that state police and Belanger’s supervisor, Lt. Aaron Turcotte, who is also a defendant in the suit, should have been aware of “interagency concerns” about Belanger before he arrested her.
Her lawsuit alleged a “a culture of tacit approval of excessive force,” citing a statistic published in a recent Bangor Daily News/Maine Monitor investigation that found the state police had received 33 excessive force complaints in a decade and not substantiated any of them.
It also marked the second time the state police were sued for excessive force in two weeks. A Limerick man sued the state police last month over his violent arrest in which dashcam footage captured troopers tackling him to the ground and punching him in the face while he was handcuffed.
That arrest was the subject of a Maine Monitor/BDN investigation that also examined how the agency mischaracterized aspects of the arrest in police reports and public statements. In that case, none of the troopers were disciplined and one was promoted while the state police’s internal affairs division was still investigating a complaint about his use of force against the man.
Belanger was not disciplined after Maloney’s letter, and the state police believed the issue was resolved, Shannon Moss, a spokesperson for the Maine Department of Public Safety, said. Maloney said in an email that she also considers the matter resolved. She wrote Love the letter for future training purposes in the agency and met with the state police shortly after, she said.
“I often give both positive and negative observations to law enforcement supervisors and receive the same from them — it is a regular back and forth,” Maloney wrote in an email.
Maloney opened her letter to Love to “express my concern” over Belanger’s conduct. She knew at the time that the matter had also been addressed by other agencies but felt his behavior created potential legal issues that “cannot simply be left to an inter-agency complaint.”
Belanger went to the scene of the residential fire in Readfield because officers there believed they may need the support of a police dog. When the trooper got there, officers from the Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office and Winthrop police had already located a man they were seeking and brought him to the scene without the need for restraints. Belanger then “took it upon himself” to put him on the ground and place him in handcuffs, Maloney said.
When the other officers asked for a rationale, Belanger stated several charges, including arson and refusing to submit to arrest, then “stormed off without further explanation,” the letter stated. At that point, police had not determined the cause of the fire. The officers did not believe they had a basis to arrest anyone at that point and expressed “concern and confusion over Trooper Belanger’s actions.”
Belanger and another trooper then submitted police reports that were “distinctly detailed but in no way fully descriptive of their involvement in this event,” Maloney wrote. For instance, Belanger’s report “cites information he did not appear to have prior to his actions,” such as speculation about the man’s mental state. She questioned how his judgment could have been so different from the other officers at the scene who had the situation under control.
An investigator with the state fire marshal’s office later arrived and investigated the fire, resulting in charges against the man, Joseph McLaughlin. But Maloney worried that Belanger’s conduct may have created “completely unnecessary legal issues” for the prosecution, such as possible evidentiary hearings, she wrote.
When prosecutors identify issues with an officer’s credibility, such as his honesty or competence, they have a constitutional obligation to notify criminal defendants with cases involving that officer about those concerns. When that happens, officers may be cast as unreliable witnesses in court, which can affect the prosecution of crimes and an officer’s career.
In this case, Maloney said she did not see any so-called Giglio or Brady issues with Belanger, referring to the U.S. Supreme Court cases that established those requirements. The trooper himself did not respond to a request for comment.
“Trooper Belanger’s report was accurate as to the criminal case but didn’t include his interactions with his fellow law enforcement officers which I wanted to bring to the attention of his supervisor,” Maloney said.
Hillary Knight, a public defender who represents McLaughlin, declined to comment, citing the active case. The case is headed to trial later this month.
Josh Keefe, a government accountability reporter with The Maine Monitor, contributed reporting.
