SACO – The Maine Attorney General’s Office is investigating whether a Biddeford man affiliated with Dreamers Cabaret committed a hate crime in Saco recently.

Saco police recently referred the case of Adam Goodwin, 35, of 65 Main St., Biddeford, to the attorney general’s civil rights division after he was accused of assaulting a black male at Rapid Ray’s, a take-out restaurant, on Dec. 18.

Goodwin was at Dreamers in the early morning hours of Dec. 5, when police checked the business after hearing loud music emanating from the building.

According to police reports, Goodwin identified himself as the man in charge that night. Police saw signs suggesting the strip club was open for business in violation of city ordinances – loud music, strobe lights and women dressed for entertainment – but Goodwin told police they were there to make emergency plumbing repairs, police said.

According to Saco police Deputy Chief Jeffrey Holland, Goodwin was issued a summons for assaulting a black male at Rapid Ray’s after an altercation at 1:09 a.m. on Dec. 18.

Holland said video surveillance from the restaurant shows Goodwin involved in a confrontation with two black males who were with white females. He said Goodwin punched one of the men, Carl Donaldson of Brockton, Mass. There were “obvious signs of assault,” but Donaldson refused medical attention, Holland said.

He said Goodwin claimed Donaldson prompted the attack, but Donaldson reported it was unprovoked. The video footage had no volume, so it was “hard to determine” if Donaldson said anything to provoke Goodwin, Holland said.

Following the incident, Goodwin threw items around the restaurant and left, Holland said. Officers found him around the corner, warned him for criminal trespass and issued a summons for assault, he said.

It is not the first time authorities have investigated Goodwin for possible hate crimes. He was charged with directing anti-Semitic slurs at a Jewish man from Brooklyn, N.Y., and spitting in his face at a nightclub in Old Orchard Beach, “based upon (Goodwin’s) bias against Jewish people,” according to an attorney general’s press release from 2009.

Goodwin signed a consent decree to resolve the charges from that incident. According to the decree, it prohibited him from committing any future violations of the Maine Civil Rights Act. Violations of the decree could be prosecutable as a Class D crime, punishable by up to 364 days in jail.

Leanne Robbin, assistant attorney general, said the case out of Saco is now in prosecutorial review.

She said judges tend to take these cases – which happen rarely – very seriously and “impose significant sentences within the parameters of a Class D crime.”

Dreamers owner Larry Ferrante said he had heard about the incident. He described Goodwin as a subcontractor working for general contractor Ken Beaulieu to ready Dreamers for opening.