A Mount Desert man who has run for several elected offices pleaded guilty Thursday morning to a misdemeanor charge after he allegedly vandalized signs at a Mount Desert Island land preserve.
Ian J. Schwartz is accused of defacing multiple signs and trail markers at the Mount Desert Land and Garden preserve on March 28, 2025, causing $1,000 in damage, according to a police report.
Judge Terrence Harrigan accepted Schwartz’s guilty plea for a misdemeanor criminal mischief charge and ordered him to pay a $250 fine, noting he has no prior convictions.
A Hancock County grand jury indicted Schwartz Feb. 5 on two counts: felony aggravated criminal mischief and misdemeanor criminal mischief. During negotiations between the district attorney’s office and Schwartz’s lawyer, William Ashe, the state later dropped the felony charge.
Schwartz, 38, declined to comment when reached by the Bangor Daily News following Thursday’s hearing.
Schwartz, who first pleaded not guilty to the criminal mischief charge last summer, was accused of damaging the preserve’s property “for the purpose of causing substantial harm to the health, safety, business, calling, career, financial condition, reputation or personal relationships of said Preserve or any other person,” according to the grand jury indictment.
Hancock County District Attorney Robert Granger did not immediately respond to inquiries from the BDN. David Kerns, police chief for Mount Desert, previously declined to release additional information about the case.
Schwartz, who served on Hancock County’s 10-person budget advisory committee, has unsuccessfully run for various local offices over the past eight years, including for the Hancock County Commission in 2020, the Mount Desert Board of Selectmen in 2019 and in the local Democratic State Senate primary in 2018.
As the only Democratic candidate on the 2020 county commissioner ballot, he concerned some of his party members after he reposted provocative social media posts titled “F*** Bar Harbor Business Owners” and “America Always Sucked: Happy 4th of July!”
The preserve protects 1,400 acres of public land on Mount Desert Island, including the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Asticou Azalea and Thuya Gardens.
Kathryn Strand, director of communications for the preserve, declined to comment on Schwartz’s guilty plea.
