AUGUSTA – In a memo last fall, an attorney for former independent gubernatorial candidate Eliot Cutler said Thom Rhoads, the husband of Rosa Scarcelli, and political consultant Dennis Bailey were behind the Cutler Files website, according to documents released this week.

Attorney Richard Spencer, who filed a complaint against the website in September on behalf of Cutler, urged Maine’s ethics commission to investigate Scarcelli, Rhoads and Bailey in connection with the site.

Spencer told the commission’s executive director, Jonathan Wayne, that Rhoads and Bailey should be questioned under oath about how much money was spent on the site, and whether the site was connected to Scarcelli’s campaign for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.

“The commission staff should investigate to determine who owned the Cutler Files research materials at the end of the primary campaign,” Spencer wrote in the undated memo. “Was it the Scarcelli campaign, the candidate, the candidate’s spouse, Mr. Bailey as the campaign’s political consultant, or someone else?”

The document was one of dozens released this week by the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices in response to a Freedom of Access Act request by the newspapers of MaineToday Media: the Kennebec Journal, the Morning Sentinel and The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram.

The documents and e-mails show that the investigation initiated by ethics officials in September focused on the three, although others also were interviewed, Wayne said. Other documents, considered confidential, were not released.

Bailey said Spencer’s memo contained a lot of speculation that eventually was proven false by the commission.

“Everything in there has been investigated and most of it was baloney,” he said.

Spencer’s memo reveals another twist in the story. He alleges that Rhoads tried to sell his research on Cutler to the gubernatorial campaign of Democrat Libby Mitchell for $30,000.

He said Mitchell’s campaign manager, Jesse Connolly, told Cutler’s campaign manager, Ted O’Meara, at a candidate forum in Saco in September that Rhoads had offered to sell the information.

The Mitchell campaign, which was using public money for campaign expenses, did not buy it.

Connolly did not return a call seeking comment Thursday. Mitchell said she was not personally approached by Rhoads and referred all questions to Connolly.

The Cutler Files investigation began after Cutler alleged that the website, which was highly critical of Cutler, did not comply with state election laws.

In particular, the state requires campaign communications that advocate for or against an identified candidate to disclose who’s behind the information. The Cutler Files did not.

Also, the Cutler campaign alleged that the site likely cost more than $100, and so would have been required to be reported as a campaign expense.

In December, the commission voted to fine someone identified only as John Doe II $200 for failing to list the proper disclosure. Later that week, Bailey came forward on his website, savvyspin.com, to admit that he was John Doe II and “one of the creators of the Cutler Files.”

The commission did not find evidence to support the claim that the site cost more than $100.

From the start, those behind the site said they believed they had a First Amendment right to anonymous political speech.

The commission has not identified John Doe I, although the Press Herald and other Maine newspapers have reported that it is Rhoads. Rhoads and Scarcelli denied involvement to the Press Herald in October.

Scarcelli, in a statement issued Thursday, repeated that denial.

“Dick Spencer has been making these allegations since this past fall,” Scarcelli said in an e-mail. “The allegations were fully investigated by the commission and they found no involvement by me or my campaign. I continue to stand by my statement that I had no involvement.”

Rhoads, a writer and researcher, sent an e-mail to the Press Herald in October that said: “I can unequivocally state that I am not the author, owner or creator of the Cutler Files, nor did I post any information on it or any other website.”

In his report to the commission in December, Wayne said one of the two people behind the Cutler Files did most of the research from August 2009 to February 2010, and that both people “contributed writing for the website.” The researcher was not paid.

Bailey said in October that he was not the “author” of the site. He later said in his blog that he did not disclose his involvement because he was working for another candidate at the time and wanted to protect him “from any negative fallout.”

Bailey said Thursday that Scarcelli, who finished third in the four-way Democratic primary in June, was not involved.

“She was totally in the dark,” he said. “She had no knowledge of it.”

Bailey said he would not identify John Doe I.

“He’s got a right to be anonymous just like the readers on your website,” he said. “Two guys put together some information that to this day no one has ever disputed, and that’s really it.”

Scarcelli paid Bailey $33,000 from September 2009 through June 2010 for his work as a campaign consultant, according to ethics commission records.

Also released by the ethics commission this week was a commission letter requesting an interview with Scarcelli’s campaign manager, Patsy Wiggins, in regard to the Cutler Files. Wayne declined to say Thursday whether that interview happened.

In another document released this week, one of the website’s authors tried to explain why they felt it was important to remain anonymous:

“The thought was that if we put our name on it, people would check our party registrations and any past connections and conclude that we are just doing this website on behalf of one of the candidates or parties, and they would lose sight of what we are trying to say: that Eliot Cutler is not who he pretends to be. What we didn’t expect was that people, and the press, are assuming it anyway, and they’re spending all their time chasing the authors of the website instead of looking at what we’re saying. We’re (expletive) either way.”

On Jan. 27, the ethics commission will meet to formalize its December decision to fine Bailey. Wayne said the commission will not reveal the name of the other John Doe “because commissioners did not find that person violated campaign finance law.”

MaineToday Media State House Writer Susan M. Cover can be contacted at 620-7015 or at:

scover@mainetoday.com

 

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