Write-in candidacy renounced by Benoit

FARMINGTON — District Court Judge John W. Benoit mailed a letter Wednesday to the secretary of state stating that he has renounced his write-in candidacy for district attorney, Senate Minority Leader Charles M. Webster said.

“Even though he says he is not a candidate, they are telling him he can’t go back to work unless he writes a letter to the secretary of state renouncing his candidacy,” said Webster, R-Farmington.

Webster helped organize a write-in effort on primary election day to get the controversial judge on the November ballot. Benoit, however, has repeatedly said he is not a candidate.

Alan Pease, chief judge of the Maine District Court, said, “I am not comfortable with a judge who is involved in any way with, or condones the use of his name in connection with, any partisan political activity, that would include Judge Benoit.”

Pease said he had told Benoit of his concern over the issue before Benoit went on vacation a couple of weeks ago.

Webster said Benoit wrote the letter this week because he was due to return from vacation and Pease had said he would not schedule Benoit for any cases until the nomination was officially renounced.

Pease stopped short of saying that, Webster said, but “clearly, that was the import.”

To qualify for the November ballot, Benoit needed to garner at least 300 votes, and according to Webster, Benoit got more than 400 votes for the GOP nomination.

The Democratic nominee is incumbent district attorney, Janet T. Mills, who is seeking her third four-year term in Androscoggin, Oxford and Franklin counties.

Benoit, previously unenrolled with any political party, registered as a Republican on primary election day, June 12, election officials said.

On July 2, state election officials ruled that Benoit should not be on the November ballot as a candidate for district attorney because he did not enroll as a Republican in time to qualify for the party’s nomination.

Webster said the state election officials’ decision to disqualify Benoit as a candidate was “strictly political.”

Benoit, who has been both criticized and commended in the past for his stiff sentences, withdrew his candidacy for nomination to a second, seven-year term on the state bench in April amid legislative concerns over his handling of cases.