The former Biddeford police officer accused of sexually abusing teenage boys denies the allegations of his most prominent accuser and says Matt Lauzon is telling “a deliberate lie.”
Stephen Dodd, who has been investigated multiple times after being accused of sexual abuse but has never been charged, says in a federal court filing that he never used his authority as a law enforcement officer to abuse Lauzon. The former officer says he is gay and had one sexual encounter with Lauzon after Lauzon, as a teenager, reached out to him through a gay online chat room.
Dodd’s statement came in response to a lawsuit filed by Lauzon and marks the first time the former police officer has responded to allegations that were made public last year. He did not respond to previous efforts to reach him for comment on the accusations.
The six-page court filing does not address allegations of past abuse made by other men.
Lauzon, who grew up in Biddeford and is now running for state representative, says Dodd sexually abused him on multiple occasions when Lauzon was 13 or 14 after Dodd made contact with him through his job as a police officer.
Lauzon went public with his allegations last year and led a high-profile push in Biddeford to investigate Dodd and the police department. Several other men then spoke out with allegations they were abused by Dodd when he was a police officer.
The allegations roiled City Hall for seven months as alleged victims and their supporters spoke at public meetings to demand the City Council take action and suspend the police chief, who was in charge when Dodd was an officer.
The Maine Attorney General’s Office investigated Lauzon’s allegations last year but did not file charges against Dodd.
“This is a lie, concocted by Lauzon because the true facts would not support the lawsuit he wanted to bring against me (and, more importantly, the City of Biddeford),” Dodd said in his response to the lawsuit.
Dodd writes in the court filing that he has always been gay, but it was “not advisable to disclose one’s sexual orientation” when he was in high school in the 1970s and in 1978 when he became a Biddeford police officer. Dodd said he was in a gay online chat room called “Maine M4M” (men for men) in 2001 when a person who identified himself as Lauzon started sending Dodd messages. Dodd said the two met down the street from Lauzon’s family home and went for a drive in Dodd’s SUV. He said Lauzon was 16 at the time and initiated a sexual encounter.
“While he was driving (my) truck, I performed oral sex on him,” Dodd wrote.
The age of consent in Maine is 16.
Dodd said he had one other encounter with Lauzon shortly thereafter when Lauzon asked the older man to buy him beer. Dodd said he did not buy him the beer.
“That is the full extent of my sexual contact with Lauzon,” Dodd said. “Contrary to the false statements in his complaint, he was the instigator in our contact (in the chat room) and the instigator of our sex (in my SUV). He told me what he wanted and I gave it to him willingly. There was no ‘force’ or ‘assault’ whatsoever.”
Dodd’s attorney, John Whitman, did not respond Friday to a request to interview either Whitman or Dodd.
Walter McKee, an attorney for Lauzon, said he and his client “look forward to seeing Mr. Dodd when he finally comes out of hiding and has to answer for the decades of abuse he meted out, all the while as a police officer.”
“Well, it is really no surprise that Mr. Dodd has turned from denying everything to now blaming the victim,” McKee said Friday. “That is his standard move. Matt and all of the other victims know it well. This changes nothing.”
Lauzon said Friday that he feels “badly for my family and friends who will be hurt here as (Dodd) revictimizes me.”
“Reading his claims are deeply disturbing, but I’m not surprised to see he’s attempting to concoct a story while he stalls the process in this case and apparently others,” Lauzon said.
Dodd is also being sued n federal court by Bertrand Girard, who alleges Dodd sexually assaulted him from 1977 to 1982.
After Lauzon, now 31, went public with his allegations, a South Portland man came forward with allegations he was abused by Dodd when they were growing up near each other in the 1970s. Richard Alexander says he reported that abuse, but Dodd wasn’t charged and went on to become a police officer.
Dodd served as a Biddeford police officer from 1978 to 2003, when he resigned and surrendered his law enforcement certificate shortly after he was investigated by the Attorney General’s Office on allegations he had sexually abused a different teenage boy. No charges were filed following that investigation.
Dodd’s last known address was in Lakeland, Florida, but he says in court documents that he no longer lives there. Whitman, his attorney, is with the Portland law firm Richarson, Whitman, Large & Badger.
Gillian Graham can be contacted at 791-6315 or at:
Twitter: grahamgillian
Send questions/comments to the editors.
