BATH, Maine — A Bath man pleaded guilty to charges that he peeked in windows at Bowdoin College and took photos and video of nude students.
Stephen L. McIntire, 56, pleaded guilty June 24 to seven misdemeanor counts of violation of privacy, a crime that carries a maximum sentence of one year in prison for each count, Sagadahoc County Assistant District Attorney Jonathan Liberman wrote in an email Tuesday.
McIntire will be sentenced at a later date.
As part of a plea agreement, charges related to accusations that McIntire broke into a Bath woman’s Cherry Street home, exposed himself, then chased her into an upstairs bathroom have been dismissed.
According to Liberman, McIntire, who was on probation after being convicted in 2015 of “peeping” in windows at Hyde School, also admitted to similar behavior in the Bowdoin incidents. As a result, probation was fully revoked, returning McIntire to jail for the remaining 33 months on his original sentence, according to Liberman.
As part of a plea agreement coordinated between the Sagadahoc and Cumberland county district attorneys’ offices, the Bath burglary case was dismissed, he said.
McIntire was convicted of gross sexual assault in 1997 and in a separate incident was convicted in 2004 of invasion of privacy, Bath police have said.
He was arrested in December 2014 after failing to register as a sex offender since the previous August, Bath police said at the time. Despite the gross sexual assault conviction, McIntire is no longer required to register as a sex offender, police said in December.
In early 2015, McIntire was convicted of burglary, violation of privacy and failure to comply with the sex offender registry after police said video cameras caught him peeping in windows on the Hyde School campus in Bath in late 2014. He served nine months and was on probation for the crimes when he was arrested Nov. 25, 2015, after police said he broke into a home on Cherry Street, waited for the homeowner to return and then exposed himself before chasing her into another room.
On Dec. 1, police named McIntire one of several “persons of interest” in a reported sexual assault at Bowdoin College after he reportedly matched a composite sketch released of a man seen loitering outside the apartment complex, where the assault was reported
McIntire was charged in February with misdemeanor counts of using a cellphone to take photos and video of women, some of them nude, through windows in settings Bowdoin College officials determined were student housing on and off campus.
Brunswick police Cmdr. Mark Waltz said Tuesday that he was pleased with the outcome of that case.
“We’re pleased with the outcome and appreciate the hard work of our detectives, as well as the hard work of the Bowdoin College community putting the case together,” he said. Waltz said the reported sexual assault case remains open.
But on Tuesday, Liberman wrote that, given “new information,” the district attorney’s office was no longer confident they could prove the case in which McIntire was accused of entering a Bath woman’s home.
“The decision to dismiss the Sagadahoc burglary case was not made in haste,” Liberman wrote. “That case involved a thorough and ongoing investigation. Significant new information came to light since the case began, and since the case was presented to grand jury. We are no longer able to prove that case beyond a reasonable doubt, therefore the case had to be dismissed.”
Liberman declined to comment on what the “new information” was, but he did say no charges were pending against anyone else related to that case.
McIntire was transferred from Two Bridges Regional Jail in Wiscasset to the Maine Correctional Center in Windham on June 28. According to the Maine Department of Corrections, he will first be eligible for release in February 2018.