Two men settle claims of sexual abuse against former Biddeford police officer

Larry Ouellette of Biddeford, center, and Matt Lauzon of Boston, both alleged sex abuse victims of members of the Biddeford Police Department, share a moment before Lauzon spoke at a forum in 2015 for victims of alleged abuse. Ouellette settled his case Monday against former officer Norman Gaudette. Gabe Souza/Staff Photographer

Two lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by a former Biddeford police officer that dragged on for years have been settled.

According to notices filed in U.S. District Court, settlements were reached Monday between two plaintiffs and Norman Gaudette, who was accused of sexually abusing both when they were teenagers more than 30 years ago.

Details of the settlements were not disclosed in court filings.

Walter McKee, an Augusta attorney who represented both victims, Lawrence Ouellette and Scott Frechette, did not return a phone call Tuesday, nor did Gaudette’s attorney, Gene Libby.

Frechette is now deceased, but his wife has been named as the beneficiary as his personal representative.

Allegations against Gaudette and another former Biddeford police officer, Stephen Dodd, resurfaced in 2015 and led to a series of lawsuits that ensnared longtime Chief Roger Beaupre, who was named as a defendant, as was the city of Biddeford. Both Beaupre and the city were dismissed from the suits.

Two lawsuits against Dodd were settled in 2019 and 2020. The two targeting Gaudette persisted.

Frechette was a Biddeford resident and a teenager when the alleged abuse occurred. According to the lawsuit, filed in 2017, Gaudette approached Frechette around 1989 and 1990 when the teenager was having trouble at home and needed a place to stay.

Frechette said Gaudette rented him a room at the Sleepy Hollow Motel and told him it was paid for with police department money. In the hotel room, Gaudette forced sexual acts on the teenager and tried to force Frechette to perform sexual acts on him, the lawsuit alleges.

The abuse caused Frechette severe psychological damage, post-traumatic stress disorder, lost wages and permanent impairment, according to his complaint.

Ouellette’s lawsuit, filed in 2015, alleges he was abused by Gaudette in the late 1980s when he was 15 and living in Biddeford. Ouellette said Gaudette sexually assaulted him for the first time after taking him to a camper in Naples and getting the teen drunk. The lawsuit alleges that Beaupre, the chief, had been notified that Gaudette had sexually assaulted other minors before the alleged assault against Ouellette. Beaupre recently announced his retirement. He’ll leave his post next month after 51 years with the department and 42 years as chief.

Court documents claimed that as many as five people accused Gaudette of sexual crimes in 1990. He was placed on administrative leave, by Beaupre, pending an investigation by the Maine Attorney General’s Office, but no criminal charges were ever brought.

Gaudette has adamantly denied the abuse allegations and he and his wife, Joanne, filed a defamation lawsuit against Mainely Media LLC for a series of stories in the Biddeford-Saco-Old Orchard Beach Courier the Gaudettes said amounted to a “smear campaign.” (Mainely Media is now part of the Masthead Maine network that includes the Press Herald, but at the time it was under different ownership.)

A York County grand jury sided with the newspaper this spring. All nine jurors agreed that the Gaudettes failed to prove that the allegations contained in the stories were false.