AUBURN, Maine — A disturbance at a local convenience store is causing more trouble for district attorney candidate Seth Carey.
Carey has already had his law license suspended over sexual assault allegations. He denies the allegations.
According to Carey, the disturbance at the store began when he put up a political sign next to the sidewalk of a Cumberland Farms on Center Street in Auburn.
He said employees at the Cumberland Farms told him the sign is on their property, and that he had to remove it.
“The lady that came out, she was really rude and she’s just like, she was the one coming up to me aggressive like, ‘You gotta remove this sign! You gotta remove this sign!’” Carey said.
Carey says at first, he refused, believing his sign was in the right-of-way.
He says store employees then called police.
[District attorney candidate Seth Carey suspended from practicing law]
“I didn’t think it was appropriate to react like they did,” Carey said. “And then to accuse me of being the one that was overreacting, which I’m the most calm person that you’ll ever meet.”
But customer Anthony Russell says store employees were polite, and Carey was the aggressor.
“He started belittling the employees. Calling them idiots. Telling them that he knew the law, everything like that,” Russell said. “That’s when I told him that it’s company-owned property and he needs permission to put his sign there. And then that’s when he basically started mocking me.”
Carey contacted two other witnesses who backed up his story.
Russell insists it was the other way around.
“He was just nasty and rude to them,” Russell said.
Police refused to comment, but Carey says officers told him to remove the sign, which he did.
Carey was also issued no-trespassing paperwork, according to the Sun Journal.
“I sort of fought back,” Carey said. “And in retrospect, it’s not the right way to handle things.”