A defense lawyer and the Kennebec County District Attorney’s Office are trying to reach an agreement on the case against Don Reiter, the former Waterville Senior High School principal who was fired last year for allegedly asking a student for sex.
Waterville police and the District Attorney’s Office filed a charge of official oppression against Reiter late last year. Reiter’s defense attorney, Walter McKee, and Paul Cavanaugh, deputy district attorney, met with a Kennebec County judge Thursday for a dispositional conference that was then postponed until October to allow more time to work out details, according to District Attorney Maeghan Maloney.
“I do believe we’ll have an agreement, but all the details weren’t worked out today,” Maloney said Thursday.
McKee said the agreement would result in a resolution of the case.
“We’re working on a potential agreement and the dispositional conference has been moved to Oct. 15,” he said.
McKee on Thursday would not say where and how Reiter is or what he is doing.
Official oppression, a misdemeanor, is designed to hold educators and those in positions of authority accountable for their actions. Maloney said the investigation will continue.
Reiter was 44 and lived in Mount Vernon when he was fired Nov. 16 by the Waterville Board of Education after allegations surfaced that he had asked an 18-year-old female student for sex on Aug. 27, the first day of school. School Superintendent Eric Haley and Assistant Superintendent Peter Thiboutot conducted an in-house investigation into the allegation and Haley placed Reiter on paid administrative leave Sept. 1. Reiter’s attorney at the time, Gregg Frame, said in December that Reiter would not appeal the firing.
Maloney’s office, in conjunction with Waterville police, charged Reiter with official oppression last year after Waterville police conducted their investigation, which included a search of Reiter’s personal computer and phone records. Maloney said she is not allowed to say what those records contain.
In November, Waterville police learned of similar allegations against Reiter by two former students at Mascenic Regional High School in New Ipswich, New Hampshire, where Reiter worked from 1998 to 2004. Waterville police had planned to forward their report in the case to New Ipswich police Chief Timothy Carpenter, but Waterville police Chief Joseph Massey said Thursday that his department has not yet done so.
Waterville police Deputy Chief Bill Bonney learned of the New Hampshire allegations when one of the women approached him at a conference in southern Maine.
One of the former Mascenic students told police she had a sexual relationship with Reiter, and the other student said she had an inappropriate relationship with him when she was 17 and he sent her 147 pages of letters in which he professed his love of her and referred to their “taboo” relationship.
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