AUGUSTA, Maine — The Waterville High School principal fired this week after accusations that he sought sex from a student has been summoned on a misdemeanor charge, Kennebec County District Attorney Maeghan Maloney announced Thursday.
Official oppression is a Class E crime, punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. It involves a public servant “acting with the intention to benefit himself or to harm another” committing an “unauthorized act which purports to be an act of his office,” according to state statute.
Don Reiter is accused of asking a student at Waterville High School for sex at the beginning of the school year. He had been on administrative leave since Sept. 1, until the school board’s 6-1 vote Monday night to dismiss him. He has denied the accusation.
“The crime of official oppression is an anti-corruption statute,” Reiter’s attorney, Walter McKee, said in an email Thursday. “Trying to apply it here is a huge stretch, and I am being very generous.”
McKee has said that the Waterville student was the one to make advances on Reiter.
Maloney said the situation has been difficult on the victim, who has been “ridiculed and called a liar” by some.
Maloney said the official oppression statute is “important” and meant to hold public officials accountable for their actions. She said she didn’t charge Reiter with attempted gross sexual assault because the victim was 18 years old.
She said the attempted gross sexual assault statute couldn’t apply, “even though the same power dynamic applies whether a student is 17 or 18.”
Maloney said she hopes the Legislature will take another look at the statute to determine whether those definitions should be revised.
“This criminal case has more issues than National Geographic,” McKee said. “The facts are disputed, the law doesn’t fit, and there are huge evidentiary problems for the state.”
Reiter’s supporters have cited a lack of evidence in the case, putting the former principal’s word against the word of the student.
“It’s always ‘he said, she said,’” Maloney said. “Just because it’s one person’s word against another doesn’t mean charges shouldn’t be brought.”
More accusations arose out of a New Hampshire high school last week, as the Waterville board was weighing what action to take. A former student at a New Hampshire high school that employed Reiter approached a city police detective last week and told him Reiter had engaged in inappropriate behavior with some of her friends.
Those allegations included letters referencing a “taboo” relationship between Reiter and a former student. Maloney said officials in New Hampshire are investigating multiple accusations against Reiter.
“It’s not about whether I think I’ll win the case,” Maloney said regarding her decision to bring the misdemeanor charge. “It’s about what is the right thing to do, what is justice in this case?”
Maloney said Reiter is scheduled to appear in court on Feb. 2.
Follow Nick McCrea on Twitter at @nmccrea213.