The attorney representing a former Biddeford police sergeant accused of sexual molestation says his firm can no longer represent Stephen Dodd.
Kennebunk attorney Gene Libby said in a brief statement that professional conduct rules for Maine attorneys caused his firm to withdraw from representing Dodd.
“This firm is no longer able to represent Mr. Dodd due to our firm’s obligations under the Maine Rules of Professional Conduct governing attorneys,” Libby wrote in an email.
He declined to provide any further information. The conduct rules say a lawyer can terminate representation for a variety of reasons, from not being paid to having a fundamental disagreement with the client.
Dodd’s whereabouts are unknown and repeated efforts to reach him in recent months have been unsuccessful.
Dodd, a longtime police officer who retired from the Biddeford Police Department in 2003, is currently under investigation by the Maine Attorney General’s Office because of allegations brought forward this year that he molested a Biddeford teenager more than a decade ago. Similar allegations against Dodd involving two different alleged victims were investigated in 2002. Dodd was never charged but the allegations ended his career.
The new allegations against Dodd come from a Boston businessman and have been widely circulated on social media, leading to a series of emotion-filled City Council meetings when residents have called for the suspension of the city’s police chief.
Libby had identified himself as Dodd’s attorney in a letter to the city, but had repeatedly declined to respond to media inquiries about Dodd and the accusations against him.
On the other hand, Libby has openly defended another former Biddeford police officer, Norman Gaudette, against accusations that he sexually abused two men decades ago. Those accusations had gone to a grand jury in 1990, but Gaudette was not charged and continued working for the police department.
Libby has filed a defamation lawsuit against the Biddeford-Saco-Old Orchard Beach Courier on behalf of Gaudette for what he called a “smear campaign.” The newspaper has defended its reporting of the allegations.
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