ELLSWORTH, Maine — Eliot Cutler, who is facing four counts of possessing sexually explicit material involving a child, wants to be able to use the internet again.
Cutler’s attorney Walter McKee filed a motion this week to amend the former two-time Maine gubernatorial candidate’s bail stipulations so his client could access the internet with regular monitoring.
Cutler was arrested at his home in Brooklin last month. He was later released on $50,000 bail that included provisions that he not possess any device that is able to connect to the internet or possess any sexually explicit materials.
“As it stands now, the prohibition of even possessing a device that has access to the internet has been tremendously challenging,” McKee wrote. “It is virtually impossible in this day and age to engage in society without a computer and internet access.”
Cutler has retained a computer and internet monitoring company that would provide regular reports of his internet usage to the district attorney’s office, if approved, McKee wrote in a filing Tuesday.
Reports from the service would specifically indicate whether he had accessed the internet in any way related to sexually explicit material, according to McKee’s motion.
Reports to prosecutors could be weekly or more frequent if the Hancock District Attorney’s Office requested it.
“The computer and internet monitoring would provide a transparent, accountable process that would allow [Cutler] to access the internet, without any concern that [Cutler] would do so to access sexually explicit material,” according to McKee.
Hancock County District Attorney Matthew Foster did not immediately return a request for comment Friday, but McKee said Foster’s office had no position on the motion.
A hearing on the matter is scheduled for May 3, when Cutler was already scheduled to have a court date.