MACHIAS – An officer with the Washington County Sheriff’s Department under investigation for an alleged sexual assault in Lubec last month had been acquitted of charges of gross sexual assault in Ellsworth in 1994.

John Carroll of Gouldsboro, who joined the Sheriff’s Department last September, is suspended with pay as Maine State Police conduct a criminal investigation into the alleged incident.

Washington County Sheriff Joe Tibbetts said Thursday he was “fully aware” of Carroll’s past when he conducted a background check and hired him as a deputy last fall.

Records from Hancock County Superior Court show that Carroll, now 35, had been indicted for gross sexual assault on Aug. 4, 1992, for an incident that allegedly took place in Ellsworth on Feb. 28, 1992.

The Ellsworth Police Department, the investigating agency in that case, charged Carroll with gross sexual assault, unlawful sexual contact and assault.

Carroll was acquitted on all counts on Sept. 22, 1994, after a jury-waived trial.

Nine months later, Carroll pleaded guilty to a charge of disorderly conduct relating to an incident Jan. 24, 1992, in the town of Mount Desert.

Carroll had been employed as a police officer for Mount Desert at the time of the January 1992 incident, in which he accosted a woman and suggested that she participate in a physical act with him.

Eight other charges relating to the Mount Desert incident were dropped, according to District Attorney Michael Povich.

Carroll was sentenced to 15 days in the Hancock County Jail, all suspended. He also received six months’ probation and a $300 fine, and was ordered to undergo counseling.Asked whether Carroll had been disciplined by the Mount Desert Police Department, Town Manager Michael MacDonald said Thursday, “We really can’t comment on personnel records.”

Carroll was not working as a police officer when the alleged second incident took place in Ellsworth in February 1992, just 34 days after the Mount Desert incident.

Povich handled the prosecution for both cases.

“At the time of the alleged gross sexual assault, Carroll was no longer a police officer,” Povich said Thursday. “That became more of a prosecutorial priority than the other charge [from January]. But the [January] charge took a while to be investigated by the state police.

“After he was acquitted, we focused on the [January] charge. We decided to put everything away and resolve it that way” with the guilty plea for disorderly conduct.

The Washington County sheriff said he knew of the charges brought against Carroll.

“We knew there was baggage,” Tibbetts said Thursday. “I personally talked with him about the charges [in Ellsworth] and that he was found innocent. We also knew that nine years have gone by, and he has had a clean record.”

Tibbetts said that Carroll had last worked at the state’s Downeast Correctional Facility in Machiasport. He hired Carroll last summer.

“The state had hired him, and I also checked with the Criminal Justice Academy,” Tibbetts said. “They said there was nothing there to stop his certification.”

He placed Carroll on leave Feb. 21 after the report of the alleged sexual assault.