A longtime and decorated state probation officer pleaded guilty in federal court Friday to accessing child sexual abuse material.
Jeffery Furlong, 53, of China, pleaded guilty last week to one count of access with intent to view child pornography. Furlong worked for the Maine Department of Corrections as a probation officer for more than two decades. While the department confirmed Furlong was a former employee, the spokesperson did not say when or how he left or how long he worked there.
It was the culmination of a monthslong investigation. Furlong’s case is notable because he has gotten recognition for his work overseeing people convicted of sex crimes, including when he helped apprehend a violent rapist who fled to Canada more than a decade ago.
The Maine State Police Computer Crimes Unit began investigating Furlong in June 2024 after receiving a tip that a Kik messenger user uploaded multiple videos of child sexual abuse material. Investigators later identified the user as Furlong.
In October 2024, state police along with Homeland Security Investigations special agents searched Furlong’s home and interviewed him. He admitted that someone had sent him child sexual abuse images and that he “had not obtained the images accidentally,” according to documents filed in federal court against Furlong.
After investigators got a warrant in November to search Furlong’s phone and iPad along with his Kik account, they found that Furlong sought out the explicit materials of children and specifically expressed sexual interest in girls between the ages of 6 and 12, court records said.
Furlong was paid nearly $75,000 in regular wages in 2024. That’s about $5,000 more than he was paid in 2023, according to payroll records. In September 2024, Furlong was still listed as a probation officer in the state’s Waterville office, according to an archived version of a Maine Department of Corrections website.
Furlong was still employed and drove a state vehicle for “probation parole routine law enforcement business” last year, an annual report of state-owned vehicle shows.
It’s unclear when Furlong joined the Maine Department of Corrections. His name appeared in a 2003 department newsletter highlighting an appearance he made on a radio show. Over the course of his career, Furlong supervised a number of criminals including sexual predators.
Furlong won an award for his investigation into the whereabouts of fugitive Mike Beaulieu who is originally from Anson. In 2010, Beaulieu kidnapped and raped a woman at gunpoint before he fled, according to federal court records. He was apprehended in Canada and sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping and using and carrying a firearm during a violent crime.
Three years prior, in 2008, Furlong oversaw the probation release terms for Vincent Robinson, a convicted sex offender, according to court records.
Furlong will be sentenced after an investigation by the U.S. Probation Office. Chris Nielsen, Furlong’s lawyer, declined to comment on his case.
Bangor Daily News investigative reporter Sawyer Loftus may be reached at [email protected].
