A York County corrections officer who made headlines in 2015 because he donated a kidney to a stranger has been indicted by the York County grand jury on multiple counts of gross sexual assault, and the charges seem to relate to his job at a correctional center for women.
Joshua Dall-Leighton, 31, of Standish was indicted Wednesday on four counts of gross sexual assault and one count of unlawful sexual touching. All are felonies.
According to the indictment list, the charges stem from conduct that allegedly occurred on four dates between Dec. 12, 2015, and Feb. 3, 2016.
The case was investigated by a Maine Department of Corrections investigator, David P. Verrier, according to the grand jury indictment.
Although the indictment sheet is not clear about which particular section of the gross sexual assault law Dall-Leighton was charged under, each of the five charges is followed by the word “custody,” potentially a reference to a portion of the law that makes any sexual contact between someone in a jail or correctional facility and someone who has supervisory authority over that person a felony.
The Maine Department of Corrections runs the Southern Maine Reentry Center in Alfred, a female-only unit of up to 64 inmates where Dall-Leighton is an employee.
Dall-Leighton received local and national media attention in 2015 when he responded to a plea written on a car window by a woman looking for a kidney.
He was a match to the woman, Christine Royles of South Portland, who in 2013 was diagnosed with lupus and an autoimmune disease, ANCA vasculitis. She had entered permanent kidney failure and rather than languish on a lengthy national waiting list, painted the sign on her car window.
After he responded and the two began to coordinate, Royles’ transplant was held up because of legal issues with a fundraising effort designed to defray the costs to the Dall-Leightons. It was ultimately performed successfully in June 2015 at Maine Medical Center in Portland.
Reached at home Friday, Dall-Leighton’s wife, Ashley Dall-Leighton, said the family had no comment on the criminal charges. Maine courts and the Department of Corrections were closed Friday, so no further information was available about the case against Dall-Leighton or his employment status at the re-entry center.
Corrections Commissioner Dr. Joseph Fitzpatrick did not return an email requesting comment.
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