An ex-Biddeford police officer has lost his appeal to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court contending that his defamation case involving a local newspaper company was mishandled.
Norman Gaudette and his wife accused Mainely Media LLC of publishing damaging and false information about him. The company includes five free papers distributed in Cumberland and York counties.
A series of articles in the Courier detailed allegations that Gaudette had sexually assaulted several teenagers when he was a Biddeford police captain.
The case hinged on whether a York County Superior Court judge should have struck a detective's testimony from the record. The detective said a previous investigation did not exonerate Gaudette because there was "clear evidence" he was a sexual predator. The defense argued that terminology was inflammatory.
But five justices on the state Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the testimony made sense in the context of the trial. The case has been ongoing since 2015.
