A former county employee has filed a lawsuit claiming the since-departed Kennebec County Emergency Management Agency director stalked her and used her work computer to download dozens of nude images of her taken during the filming of “Naked and Afraid.”
Lawyers for Danielle Beauchemin, of Falmouth, filed a civil rights lawsuit against the Kennebec County Emergency Management Agency and Kennebec County in federal court Tuesday. The lawsuit also names as additional defendants Scott Ferguson, the county administrator, Cynthia Ferguson, the county’s finance director, Christine Brawn, the county’s human resources director, and Arthur True, the county’s former Emergency Management Agency director.
Beauchemin claims those current and former employees violated her civil rights, made her feel unsafe and anxious at work, and tried to downplay the allegations and convince her to not take them to police. The suit alleges that they retaliated against her when she did go to police, revoking her permission to have her service dog at work, falsely accusing her of subpar job performance and eventually terminating her employment.
Peter Marchesi, the county’s attorney, said the case will be defended vigorously and expressed confidence the allegations will be disproven and they will be fully vindicated.
“The complaint appears to be an exercise in creative, sensationalist writing, and bears little relation to the true facts surrounding the events at issue,” Marchesi, of the Waterville law firm Wheeler & Arey, said in an email on behalf of the county, the Fergusons, and Brawn. “The county made herculean efforts to meet the requests and demands of the plaintiff within the structure of all applicable laws.”
Beauchemin also claims True stalked her by placing hidden cameras and a flashlight in the ceiling above her office so he could observe her at work.
She took her complaints to Augusta police and True was charged criminally, making his initial appearance in court January 2024. He pleaded not guilty to charges of stalking and criminal invasion of computer privacy in July 2024.
Criminal charges of aggravated criminal invasion of computer privacy and stalking remain pending against True in Kennebec County Superior Court. His case is due for a docket call, generally one of the last steps before going to trial, in late March 2026, court officials said.
True was director of the Kennebec County Emergency Management Agency for 10 months, until he resigned in April 2023.
On April 18, 2023, Beauchemin checked her browsing history and discovered someone had logged into her computer the previous weekend, the suit states, alleging that True had entered her locked office, logged onto her work computer and entered her private Google Drive account. He then looked at her Google Photos account and downloaded more than 100 photographs of her, the suit claims.
Many of those were uncensored nude images of Beauchemin taken while she was being filmed for the reality television show “Naked and Afraid.” The Google Photos account was linked to her old cellphone, which had thousands of images on it. Court documents state at no point did Beauchemin ever upload, download or in any way access nude or explicit photographs on her work computer.
“Naked and Afraid” is a reality television show on the Discovery Channel in which contestants are dropped off in the wilderness and must survive, without clothes, food, water or much else for supplies. Published reports indicate Beauchemin appeared on the show in three episodes between 2014 and 2021.
When Beauchemin reported True’s actions to her supervisors, they responded by minimizing the situation, the suit states, told her to avoid True at the office, and pressured her not to go to police because they were going to handle the issue internally.
When Beauchemin went to police, the lawsuit states, county employees immediately began retaliating against her, which included berating her for reporting the issue to police. “Over the next several months, high-level county administrators continued to discriminate and retaliate against Ms. Beauchemin,” the suit alleges.
Their alleged retaliation and discrimination included rescinding Beauchemin’s previously granted accommodation to bring her certified service dog to work with her, because it helped her with mental health disabilities, including ADHD and anxiety.
The suit alleges county officials also stripped Beauchemin of the job duties she was hired to perform, misinformed county CPR instructors whom Beauchemin oversaw that it was her fault they didn’t receive payments from the emergency management agency, fabricated evidence that Beauchemin failed to perform her job duties, and created a work environment that was so hostile she took unpaid medical leave at the recommendation of her treatment provider.
While she was on that medical leave, the lawsuit alleges, the county effectively “fired her” by writing her out of the federal grant that funded her job. County commissioners voted Nov. 7, 2023, to redirect ARPA funds, thereby eliminating Beauchemin’s position.
Beauchemin was hired by Kennebec County as an emergency management specialist and education coordinator in January 2023, with her three-year contract based on federal grant funding the county received under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.
“In short, Ms. Beauchemin was subjected to a hostile work environment by Mr. True and by county administrators after Mr. True’s resignation in retaliation for her reporting Mr. True’s criminal conduct to the police,” according to the lawsuit filed by the Topsham-based law firm Johnson and Webbert. “The county engaged in a campaign of discrimination, harassment and retaliation against Ms. Beauchemin for standing up for her rights, culminating in her termination, all in clear violation of federal and state laws and the U.S. and Maine constitutions.”
The lawsuit requests a jury trial and seeks to have it declared that Beauchemin’s rights were violated and that she be reinstated to her job or be awarded “front pay” for future lost wages and benefits. It also seeks compensatory damages, punitive damages against the individual defendants, but not against the county or emergency management agency, with amounts to be determined by the jury at trial, back pay for lost wages and benefits, and her legal and attorney fees.
The lawsuit states “being stalked, harassed, and discriminated and retaliated against has had a profound and lasting impact on Ms. Beauchemin’s mental, emotional and physical well-being. The anxiety and depression she experienced because of the hostile and retaliatory work environment continues to severely impact her ability to sleep, eat or socialize.”
It states she often cries herself to sleep, lost more than 30 pounds after being fired, and no longer gets the same sense of enjoyment from activities she used to love, including spending time in nature, and she is afraid of using electronics and social media over concerns that she’ll be spied on.
This story was originally published by the Maine Trust for Local News. Keith Edwards can be reached at kedwards@centralmaine.com.