Rick Alexander believes the Attorney General’s Office let him down by not bringing charges against a man he says sexually assaulted him 40 years ago, leaving him with post-traumatic stress disorder and a lifetime of anxiety.

Alexander, 52, said in an interview Tuesday that he told the Attorney General’s Office in 2002 that Stephen Dodd, then a Biddeford police officer, had repeatedly assaulted him years earlier. Alexander was interviewed twice by the Attorney General’s Office and says he recounted details of the assaults that began when he was about 11 years old, including being bound by handcuffs and sodomized. The only response he got was a letter showing that Dodd was relinquishing his certificate to practice law enforcement and was retiring.

“I made a full complaint to the State of Maine 13 years ago. They’ve let me down,” Alexander said. “This guy ruined my life. He needs to be held accountable. He needs to be put in prison.”

However, the state might not have that option. Sexual assault on a child currently has no statute of limitations, but that was not the case in the 1970s when cases older than six years could not be prosecuted. The Attorney General’s Office said Tuesday it would not be able to confirm an allegation of abuse even if the reason there were no charges was because of the statute of limitations.

Alexander is adding his voice to others accusing Dodd of decades of abusing children.

Matthew Lauzon, 30, has been outspoken in his accusations against Dodd, posting them on Facebook and speaking with several media outlets about what he described as a nightmare of abuse.

State and local officials say they are prohibited by law from commenting on whether the Attorney General’s Office is investigating, but Lauzon and his attorney say there is an ongoing investigation. Walter McKee, Lauzon’s attorney, also has launched a civil investigation into the allegations.

The lack of prosecution by authorities and even confirmation that anything happened makes it hard for victims, McKee said.

“What it does for the victims is make them wonder why they even bothered to do anything in the first place,” he said Tuesday.

Alexander alleges Dodd’s misconduct dates to the 1970s. McKee said he is aware of at least one other alleged victim whose description of events is strongly mirrors Lauzon’s and Alexander’s.

Dodd was suspended from the police department and investigated by the Attorney General’s Office in 2002 after a similar allegation by someone – not Lauzon or Alexander – who has not been officially indentified. Dodd was never charged and has no criminal record in Maine.

Dodd, now 57, retired from the Biddeford Police Department in July 2003. His last known address was in Lakeland, Florida. He has not responded to requests for comment.

Alexander told an investigator with the Attorney General’s Office, and recounted again Tuesday, how he was first sexually assaulted in a tent behind a neighbor’s house. He said Dodd, who was a family friend, assaulted him repeatedly after that until he was about 14 or 15. Sometimes, Dodd would get Alexander to accompany him under the pretext that he needed help with chores.

One time, he cuffed his hands and pressed his face into the newly mown grass of a back yard.

“Fresh cut grass, that’s a trigger for me – the smell of molestation,” he said. Dodd threatened to hurt him or his family if he told, Alexander told investigators.

Dodd, who Alexander said was a reserve officer with the Old Orchard Beach Police Department at one point, would offer the neighborhood boys confiscated fireworks and beer and marijuana paraphernalia from the trunk of his pea-green Plymouth two-door sedan.

“This was like opening a pirate chest,” Alexander recalled.

The abuse ended around Christmastime 1977. Alexander remembers he was assembling a model airplane, a B-17, when he finally stood up to Dodd.

“I said ‘You have to leave and don’t come back,'” Alexander said.

Repressing his experience and his pain, Alexander tried to distract himself with work and reading. But it ate at him, he said. His lack of trust has cost him friendships. Every night, he thoroughly checks the house and locks it down.

Two things eventually made him file his complaint with the Attorney General’s Office. His son was closing in on the age when he says he was abused, and the Catholic Church clergy abuse scandal broke.

“I gave them two depositions at two different times,” Alexander said of his meeting with the AG’s investigator. “They knew of Dodd and they said there was an ongoing investigation.”

Criminal prosecution could be barred because of the statute of limitations that was in place at the time. Civil lawsuits are also restricted, though not as severely, McKee said.

Alexander said he has yet to meet Lauzon, a businessman who lives in Boston. He said until recently, he didn’t know there were other victims.

“I think we’re fighting the same battle,” Alexander said. “I hope it goes well, given what we have been through. … Matt, I and all the others molested by a serial pedophile.”

Alexander says he once tried to take his life and has spent time at a mental health facility and undergone therapy

“I’ve been carrying this around all of my life,” he said. “I got to get rid of it.”