A federal appeals court on Wednesday reinstated a lawsuit against the city of Biddeford and Police Chief Roger Beaupre filed by a man who alleges he was sexually abused by a Biddeford police officer in the 1980s.
U.S. District Judge Lance Walker had ruled that Lawrence Ouellette’s suit was filed too long after the alleged abuse and was barred by the statute of limitations. But the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the basis of the suit was a series of blog posts from 2015 that alleged that Beaupre knew of another instance of alleged sexual abuse by the same officer, Norman Gaudette. Ouellette’s suit said that the city and Beaupre were deliberately indifferent to a violation of Ouellette’s constitutional rights.
The appeals court said that some of the information that Ouellette based his suit on, in which he alleged that Beaupre failed to investigate sex abuse allegations early, only came to light in the 2015 blog posts. Therefore, the court said, the statute of limitations should apply to when Ouellette learned that information, five years ago. The case was sent back U.S. District Court in Portland.
Three other men have filed suit against the city and police officers, alleging that they were sexually abused. Two of the cases have been dismissed and one is pending.
Many of the allegations were raised in 2015, when Ouellette read the blog posts and residents demanded action from city officials, who said they were barred from discussing ongoing investigations by state law.
As a result of Wednesday’s ruling, Ouellette’s case will be heard in federal court in Maine.
Correction: This story was updated at 5:20 p.m. Friday, Oct. 9, 2020 to correct the name of the police officer.
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