WEST BATH
Charged with 20 counts of alleged sex crimes against children, youth theater group founder Henry Eichman will face a jury in January.
Eichman, 57, of Brunswick, has two cases pending — one in Cumberland County Superior Court and one in Sagadahoc County. Those cases will be combined and tried together, as requested by defense attorney Annie Stevens.
Originally scheduled to go to trial next month, attorneys for the state and defense, along with Justice Daniel Billings, decided Wednesday to push the trial date to January, with jury selection scheduled for Jan. 3-4.
District attorney Jonathan Lieberman is prosecuting the case.
Eichman, who has pleaded not guilty to all allegations against him, was present for the dispositional conference and remains free on personal recognizance bail.
As part of his bail conditions, Eichman is not allowed contact with minors, but can have supervised visits with his grandchildren, according to court documents.
Eichman was indicted in early July on charges of unlawful sexual contact of a person under age of 12, and unlawful sexual touching of a student.
He was indicted on the same two charges by a Cumberland County grand jury in April stemming from a complaint that was also investigated by the Brunswick Police Department.
Brunswick Police Cmdr. Mark Waltz said previously Brunswick police received a report June 10 from a student and their parent at St. John’s Catholic School in Brunswick. That complaint alleged the child had been sexually assaulted in late August or early September of 2016. The incident allegedly occurred during an after-school program at St. John’s, where Eichman also taught theater. The investigation into the complaint led to the July indictment.
The indictment handed down by a Cumberland County grand jury in April was the result of a complaint Brunswick police received in September 2016 of an incident allegedly involving Eichman and a female minor under the age of 12 that occurred at St. John’s Catholic School.
Before his indictments in Cumberland County, Eichman faced several charges in Sagadahoc County. A founder of the Midcoast Youth Theater Group, he was arrested by Topsham police in September 2016 and charged with 16 sex-related crimes.
Those charges include seven counts of unlawful sexual contact, three counts of visual sexual aggression against a child and six counts of unlawful sexual touching. The alleged crimes took place between April 2013 and August 2016 and involve six different victims under the age of 13, according to court records. Ten of the alleged counts are crimes against children under 12, making them Class B crimes.
jlaaka@timesrecord.com
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