A 34-year-old Rockland man was arrested Wednesday morning, accused of possessing child sexual abuse material.
Andrew D. Edgcomb of Frederick Street was arrested April 15 by Rockland police on an arrest warrant issued by the court at the request of the Maine State Police. He is charged with four felony counts of possession of sexually explicit materials involving a person younger than 12 years old.
The Maine State Police computer crime unit searched the home on Sept. 11, 2025, but charges weren’t immediately brought.
State police had been tipped off in January 2025 by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about the possibility of child sexual abuse material. The state police computer crime unit investigated and tracked down the computer address and led to the September 2025 search of the home in which officers had to force open the door after the occupants refused to answer the door.
Edgcomb had pleaded guilty in November 2024 to one count of stalking, two counts of assault, and two counts of criminal mischief for placing his semen on the belongings of a co-worker multiple times. He had also been investigated for throwing semen on the backs of women and girls at stores, but no charges resulted from those incidents.
Justice Patrick Larson accepted a plea agreement reached between the district attorney’s office and defense in which Edgcomb would be placed on a deferred disposition for a year. If he met the conditions, which include mental health counseling and committing no additional crimes, he would be sentenced to a suspended 364-day jail sentence, placed on probation for a year, and fined $300.
The victim in the case spoke out against the agreement at the November 2024 court hearing, saying Edgcomb should spend time in jail.
“The violation will stay with me forever,” the young woman told Larson.
“I can’t think of a more vile and disgusting act,” Larson agreed. The judge accepted the agreement, however, repeating the points raised by the prosecutor that the offender had no prior record and cooperated with investigators. He said the actual sentence is 364 days in jail, which the defendant could face if he violates probation or the deferred disposition.
Edgcomb’s arrest in September 2023 followed a lengthy investigation by Rockland police that began in February that year. The department obtained an arrest warrant approved by the court in July 2023. Edgcomb was apprehended on Sept. 21 that year. Police believe he had gone to Florida and that state would not extradite on misdemeanor charges.
According to an affidavit filed by Rockland police in the Knox County court, a woman at a local business noticed that a whitish, sticky substance had been placed on her water bottle that turned out to be semen. She took the bottle to the Rockland Police Department and reported the incident in February 2023. In March 2023, the woman found semen on her personal bag at work, including on a stuffed animal.
Police interviewed co-workers of the woman and one of them — Edgcomb — admitted to masturbating and taking the ejaculate and placing it on the woman’s belongings. He said he did not know why he did it but it was out of character for him, according to the affidavit.
Edgcomb agreed to give a DNA sample to police. When the sample was processed at the state crime laboratory, it came back with a hit from incidents at Walmart in Thomaston in 2019.
Rockland police reviewed the police reports from Thomaston in which a man, later identified as Edgcomb, followed a female worker at Walmart multiple times and on two occasions had thrown something on her which turned out to be semen. Edgcomb was issued a notice by Thomaston police not to return to Walmart. Edgcomb refused to talk to police and he was not charged.
This incident led police to review two more incidents from 2019 at Hannaford in Rockland. In one, a man, later identified as Edgcomb, touched the back of a woman, and she later found semen on the back of her shirt.
A review of surveillance video showed a man appearing to throw something onto the woman’s back.
Police responded in September 2019 to a report that a man, later identified as Edgcomb, had thrown something on the back of a 12-year-old girl.
Police did not have physical evidence from the incidents at Hannaford tying them to Edgcomb because the matter was not immediately referred to police. Rockland police issued Edgcomb a notice not to return to Hannaford in 2019. He was not charged for those incidents because they were misdemeanor offenses and the statute of limitations had expired.
This story appears through a media partnership with Midcoast Villager.
