State judicial board seeks to disbar former gubernatorial candidate Eliot Cutler after child-porn conviction

Eliot Cutler listens to his lawyer speak during a plea change hearing in Hancock County Court in Ellsworth last April. Cutler was disbarred from practicing law in Maine this week after serving around seven months in prison for possessing child pornography. Cutler, 77, a two-time gubernatorial candidate, pleaded guilty in 2023 to four counts of possession of sexually explicit material of a child under 12. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

A state judicial board is seeking to disbar former gubernatorial candidate Eliot Cutler from practicing law in Maine following his conviction last year for possessing child pornography.

Cutler and the Maine Board of Bar Overseers appeared at a public hearing before the Maine Supreme Judicial Court on Wednesday, and Cutler did not oppose the board’s recommendation, according to Aria Eee, the board’s executive director and general counsel. Cutler’s trial attorney, Walter McKee, had said Friday that Cutler was disbarred, but did not provide any additional information.

Eee said the court will issue an order on the request, and that such orders are usually announced about a month after a hearing. The high court had not published a ruling as of Friday night.

Cutler was born in Bangor and was first admitted to the Maine Bar in 1974. He was long known as a respected public servant – he was an Ivy League graduate who worked on Capitol Hill and in the White House. Cutler had a hand in major national policy shifts on energy and natural resources in the 1970s and co-founded a successful environmental law firm in Washington, D.C. He later returned to Maine and unsuccessfully ran for governor twice as an independent in 2010 and 2014, using his personal wealth to bankroll both campaigns.

Cutler was arrested at his Brooklin home in 2022 and charged with four counts of possession of sexually explicit material of a minor under 12. An investigation found that between 2014 and 2021, Cutler downloaded more than 80,000 images of children younger than 12, many as young as 4 years old, engaged in often violent and unusual sexual acts, according to prosecutors.

Cutler pleaded guilty to all four counts and was ordered to spend nine months behind bars. He was released two months early for good behavior and is now serving six years of probation. He was also ordered to register as a sex offender for life.