Washington County found not liable in sexual assault case

BANGOR – Washington County and Sheriff Joseph Tibbetts were found not liable Tuesday in U.S. District Court in the alleged sexual assault of a former jail inmate.

The jury of seven women and one man deliberated for about 21/2 hours before delivering their verdict to Judge Gene Carter after a 11/2-day trial.

Linda Faas, 39, of Bangor, filed the lawsuit against the county, Tibbetts and former guard William Sinford, Jr. a year ago. She reached a “minor monetary settlement” last month with Sinford, according to her attorney Dale Thistle of Newport. He declined to specify the amount Sinford agreed to pay Faas, but said that the settlement was not covered by the county’s insurance.

Faas testified Monday that Sinford sexually assaulted her twice in June 2001 while she was incarcerated. Because of her job in the jail laundry, she was able to save her clothing after the first alleged assault.

A Maine State Police detective testified Monday that her jail-issued T-shirt and sports bra contained Sinford’s DNA.

Sinford, 33, of East Machias invoked his Fifth Amendment right Monday to avoid self-incrimination when asked if he had sexually assaulted Faas. The former guard also testified that he knew sexual contact, whether forced or consensual, between a guard and an inmate was criminal.

To find the county liable, the jury had to agree that the sexual assaults had occurred, that the assaults were the result of a custom or practice that was widespread or pervasive and that such a custom or practice was the moving force behind Sinford’s alleged assaults on Faas, said Carter Tuesday in his instructions to the jury.

Tibbetts testified Tuesday that in his eight years as a county employee, including more than four as sheriff, there had been no complaints of sexual assault at the jail before Faas filed hers in 2001. The sheriff also said that there had been two reports of consensual sex between a guard and an inmate after that. One allegation proved to be false and a guard was fired in the other.

The sheriff also testified that he’d investigated three incidents of improper personal contact between prison employees and inmates. One involved Sinford’s ex-wife and former guard Shannon Sinford, who resigned when confronted with her home phone records that showed she’d been having long phone conversations with a Hancock County Jail inmate who had been moved there from Washington County.

Although Faas denied Monday that she set up Sinford and seduced him, former inmate Richard Look testified Tuesday that she told him the day after the first alleged assault that she had planned the encounter. He said Faas asked him for the names of lawyers.

“She said that she was keeping her clothes for the lawsuit and she was going to get big bucks out of it,” testified Look, 46, of Pembroke. “She was bouncing around and saying, ‘Just call me Linda May Sue.'”

As he was leaving the courthouse, Thistle said that he and his client were disappointed in the verdict, adding that the court set “a high hurdle that we just couldn’t meet. The very act itself indicates there was a custom or practice of condoning such behavior,” he said.

Faas, who has known Tibbetts all her life, shook the sheriff’s hand after the trial and urged him to pressure county officials to pursue criminal charges against Sinford.

Michael Povich, district attorney for Washington County, said that he had just recently been told it would not be a conflict of interest for him to pursue possible criminal charges against Sinford.

“Now that the conflict has disappeared, I have the green light to be involved in the criminal investigation,” Povich said late Tuesday afternoon. “I plan to revisit the case, discuss it with state police investigators and make a decision about where to go.”