If you or someone you know needs resources or support related to sexual violence, contact the Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault’s 24/7 hotline at 800-871-7741.
LINCOLN, Maine — Council Vice Chair David Ireland appeared calm as Emily Jayne said she would read a statement from someone named Rebecca.
Jayne, standing at the lectern during a July 15 hearing on Lincoln’s budget, had already brought up assault allegations against Ireland from over a decade ago at a prior meeting. Now she was reading a claim by his younger sister, Rebecca Bethune, into the public record.
“I’m your sister, and I have some things to say,” Bethune said through Jayne, repeating the allegation that Ireland repeatedly sexually assaulted her as a child.
Some in the packed meeting room began shouting.
“You’re not going to read that,” the town’s attorney said, cutting off Jayne, who began passing out copies of the statement to councilors before the police chief escorted her out.
Ireland has repeatedly denied Bethune’s allegation that he assaulted her multiple times when she was approximately between the ages of 4 and 11. Ireland was roughly between ages 11 and 18 at the time.
He also denied a sexual assault claim allegedly levied by his daughter when she was 5 years old. Both allegations resulted in protection from abuse orders, civil orders that do not indicate guilt of a crime. Neither resulted in criminal charges.
But both followed him into office. A trail of public documents, missed by many Lincoln voters during his 2025 election campaign, detail alleged assaults dating back to the 1980s, along with an election ethics fine, a bankruptcy and a business that collected deposits for work that was not completed.
Local campaigns often draw scant attention from the press and leave rural voters, like the Lincoln residents who circulated some of the allegations against Ireland on Facebook ahead of his election, with little avenue for reliably sharing details about candidates. But as Ireland drew outrage with a plan to cut the town’s budget to 2021 levels, knowledge of the allegations spread.
Now, they are discussed at council meetings and are boosting an effort to recall Ireland and his council allies, the second such attempt this year.
Ireland is a prolific Facebook poster, sharing conservative memes, religious sermons and occasional callouts of local political opponents. The URL of his page carries President Donald Trump’s initials. So far, he has powered through the allegations, saying his past was dredged up by desperate opponents, replicating a strategy employed by political figures like Trump and former Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner.
In person, though, he cuts a quieter figure. Ireland appeared calm as Jayne read his sister’s statement into the record and was escorted from the room. He has repeatedly declined to speak with a Bangor Daily News reporter, though he provided a written statement that he also shared on Facebook.
The allegation that Ireland abused his daughter dates to 2012, when she was 5 and allegedly described sexual abuse to two social workers, according to a Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruling. At age 6, she testified in court that she remembered Ireland “did something bad,” but that she didn’t remember what, the ruling said. With the help of one social worker’s testimony, a district court found that Ireland had abused his daughter. It awarded the girl’s mother, an ex-partner of Ireland’s, a protection order that Ireland appealed all the way to Maine’s high court. That court upheld the order in 2014.
“I denied those allegations then, and I deny them today,” Ireland said in a statement to the BDN. “The experience had a profound impact on my life and my relationship with my daughter.”
A decade earlier, Bethune told Lincoln police that Ireland had sexually assaulted her repeatedly as a child, between about 1984 and 1991, according to an incident report written by a Lincoln police officer and a written complaint by Bethune from 2002. Bethune obtained a protection order for herself and her three daughters the same year. Both protection orders granted against Ireland have since expired.
The claims resurfaced in town politics in the fall, weeks before Ireland’s election, when a local resident posted a 2014 Portland Press Herald story that referenced the allegations that he abused his daughter. When Ireland posted a response to the allegations, it confirmed for residents that the man on the ballot was the same one in the news clippings.
Jayne checked out Ireland’s past after seeing him campaign at the town dump while he was running for council. She later searched his name online, finding the 2014 court decision upholding the protection order separating Ireland from his daughter.
At a packed June 30 meeting where the council discussed and suspended Ireland’s budget cuts, Jayne brought up the claims allegedly levied by his daughter. Most of the roughly 50 residents in attendance applauded when she finished.
Jayne, who moved to Lincoln last year, told the BDN she believed that “abusers should not hold positions in any form of government regardless of political affiliation,” rattling off a list of political figures who have been accused of sexual misconduct: Trump, Platner and “at the very bottom, David Ireland.”
“It seems like an incredibly low bar to ask our elected officials to meet and they can’t even do that,” Jayne said.
She was not yet aware of Bethune’s allegations, though the pair were in contact soon after.
Former Town Councilor George Edwards learned about some of the allegations against Ireland from other residents last fall, while the two were running against each other for council seats. But Ireland won one of three open seats, receiving 829 votes to Edwards’ 602.
In May, Edwards helped spearhead a petition to recall Ireland and three of his conservative allies on the council. It failed the following month when too few residents signed on. Street said much of the discussion around Ireland has played out online, leaving some voters unaware.
“So much stuff was happening on Facebook that was not coming out in the news that a lot of people didn’t know about these allegations,” longtime Town Councilor Gordon Street said. “I think a lot of people are now saying if they had known ahead of time they would not have voted for him.”
Not everyone in Lincoln sees the allegations as disqualifying. Timothy Wright, a resident who supports some of Ireland’s budget cuts, said he isn’t sure whether the claims are true but that they “shouldn’t affect the job that he’s trying to do for the town.”
Local police investigated Bethune’s claims when she filed a complaint against her brother in 2002. The investigating officer found family members skeptical, though some said they had witnessed sexually inappropriate behavior from David, according to the Lincoln police officer’s incident report.
A BDN reporter reached out to several of Ireland and Bethune’s family members; they remain divided on whether they believe Bethune’s allegations against Ireland. Some relatives noted that Bethune has struggled with her mental health, which she confirmed. She blamed her mental health issues in part on the alleged abuse, which she said has made maintaining bonds difficult.
“It has destroyed every aspect of my life,” she said.
The investigating officer told Bethune the case would be hard to prove given its age and lack of physical evidence, according to the report. When the officer interviewed Ireland, he described him as “very relaxed” and wrote that Ireland “kept good eye contact and never seemed to get nervous.” Ireland told the officer he wasn’t sure why his sister made the allegations but suspected she was trying to “ruin” his political career, the report said.
Ireland’s record beyond the abuse allegations has also drawn scrutiny. He was fined nearly $14,000 in 2001 by Maine’s Ethics Commission for misusing the state’s taxpayer-funded election system during a failed state Senate bid, which he recently called “a mistake I sincerely wish I could undo.” He also declared bankruptcy in the 1990s when his paralegal services business failed. That business was found to have practiced law without a license.
“I disagreed with aspects of that conclusion, but I accepted that the court had spoken and complied with its ruling,” Ireland said in his statement.
In 2014, his contracting company collected thousands of dollars in deposits for natural gas hookups it never installed before abruptly closing. A utility company, which Ireland blamed for the delayed payments, later said it would refund customers. Ireland said his financial troubles were unrelated to the case involving his daughter, which was working through the courts at the same time.
“I understand that some people will read or hear these events and reach conclusions different from my own,” Ireland said in his statement. “All I ask is that you consider my entire life — not isolated moments from decades ago — and judge me by my conduct, my public service, and my commitment to the people of Lincoln.”
Ireland’s hold on town affairs may be weakening. In July, the council approved a roughly $11 million budget that cut spending by about 3%, far short of Ireland’s original plan for a 12.8% cut. Two of his fellow conservatives, former state Rep. Sheldon Hanington and Councilor Eric Rojo, broke from Ireland to back the smaller cuts proposed by the town manager.
On July 28, petitioners began collecting signatures for a second recall attempt against Ireland and two council allies. One resident involved in organizing the recall effort, Vicki Clay, said that while the three conservatives were facing a recall because of the summer’s budget drama, she was “particularly disturbed” by Ireland’s alleged child sexual abuse.
Bethune often considers attending a Lincoln Town Council meeting to confront her brother. Since Jayne first spoke about Ireland’s past at a June meeting, Bethune has become more involved in Lincoln’s political Facebook circles; the pair worked together to polish her statement for the July 15 confrontation.
While Bethune hasn’t attended in person, she does watch some council meetings from home. Seeing Jayne first confront Ireland about his past was a relief decades in the making.
“I’m 47 years old, and one individual has finally heard,” Bethune said, referring to Jayne. “Nobody heard me. Nobody heard me 20 years ago. Nobody heard me 30 years ago, and you have no idea how this has affected my life.”
Daniel O’Connor is a Report for America corps member who covers rural government as part of the partnership between The Maine Monitor and the Bangor Daily News, with additional support from BDN and Monitor readers.