An unscheduled plea hearing on the case of a Waldoboro attorney accused of domestic violence assault held in Cumberland County July 11 resulted in the primary charge being dismissed and a guilty plea being accepted on lesser charges.
At the July 11 hearing, Philip Cohen, 45, pleaded guilty to charges of disorderly conduct and violating condition of release, both Class E misdemeanors.
The disorderly conduct charge said Cohen “did, in a public place, intentionally or recklessly cause annoyance to others by making loud and unreasonable noises,” according to the complaint. The violating condition of release charge was the result of prohibited contact with the alleged assault victim through telephone and text messages.
Cohen’s guilty pleas are part of a deferred disposition, and if through the next year he meets a condition of no contact with the alleged assault victim (without the person’s written approval) and completes a mental health evaluation focused on “anger and violence issues” and completes counseling, he will pay fines of $500 for each charge.
If Cohen is not compliant with the terms of the deferred disposition, he could be subject to up the maximum penalty for each Class E misdemeanor.
The original domestic violence assault charge, which was dismissed, was a Class D misdemeanor. The assault was alleged to have taken place on or about Nov. 15, 2013.
Though the case originated in Lincoln County, a change of venue was granted due to multiple judges recusing themselves from the case due to Cohen’s involvement in the legal community for many years, according to court documents.
Cohen was originally scheduled for a plea hearing in Kennebec County Superior Court during the second week of June, but the hearing was canceled the day it was supposed to take place.
Repeated calls by The Lincoln County News to the court clerk’s office in the intervening weeks yielded no new information on a new date for the plea hearing, including calls made July 10, the day before the hearing actually took place, and July 15, four days after the hearing. Each time, court personnel said the hearing had not yet been rescheduled.
According to Cumberland County Clerk of Courts Sally Bourget, notice of the July 11 hearing was posted on the court’s schedule the morning of the hearing.
Mary Ann Lynch, government and media counsel for Maine’s judicial branch, described Cohen’s case as an “orphan” due to the venue issues, but did not fault the court clerks for the lack of available information regarding the hearing.
“I’m satisfied that the clerks did all they could have and were not in control when lawyers scheduled things sort of on their own and did not go through the clerk’s office,” Lynch said July 21.
A call to Assistant District Attorney Andrew Matulis, the prosecutor in the case, was not returned by press time.
No calls were made to Matulis to elicit a date for the plea hearing as he had previously declined to comment on upcoming court dates related to the Cohen case.
Walter McKee, Cohen’s attorney, said there was no “sneaking off” to Cumberland County for the hearing and it was held there to avoid waiting for Justice Roland Cole to return to Augusta in several months.
McKee said Cole is almost exclusively a justice in Cumberland County and was specially assigned to Cohen’s case since many judges had conflicts handling the case due to dealing with Cohen professionally.
“In order to put the [plea] agreement through it was done in Cumberland County in the Portland court,” McKee said.
McKee offered no comment on the outcome of the case, nor did the Maine State Bar Association.
The particulars of the July 11 plea hearing are not the first unusual circumstances involved in the Cohen case.
The affidavit outlining probable cause for Cohen’s initial arrest by the Waldoboro Police Department has yet to surface in either court files or in response to public document requests of the police, the prosecutor’s office, or Two Bridges Regional Jail.
Such affidavits are regularly included in case files available for public inspection at courts, often appearing in a file within days of an arrest.
Some affidavits are brief, and others stretch on for pages, outlining law enforcement officers’ observations and interactions with the alleged offender or witnesses that support probable cause that a crime has been committed.
For weeks following Cohen’s arrest, as the details of who would handle the prosecution of the case and where it would be handled were apparently being ironed out, Two Bridges Regional Jail appeared to be the only agency with a copy of the affidavit.
Lincoln County Superior Court (where the court files were kept until the venue changed) had not received a copy; and Waldoboro Police Department does not typically keep copies of the affidavits, Chief Bill Labombarde said in December.
The jail’s attorney, Jeffrey Peters, said in an email in December the jail would not release the probable cause affidavit without a court order or authorization by Cohen, claiming it is “intelligence and investigative record information” under the law and releasing it would “interfere with law enforcement proceedings relating to crimes” and “constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”
Androscoggin County Deputy District Attorney Andrew Robinson too denied a public record request for the affidavit, citing an exemption of prejudicial information “concerning an accused person or concerning the prosecution’s evidence that will interfere with the ability of a court to impanel an impartial jury.”
Robinson seemed surprised the affidavit was not available in the case file, however.
“We have confirmed with the court that there is no probable cause affidavit in the court’s file. I cannot explain this,” Robinson wrote in an email in January.
The affidavit was still not present in the court files as of July 22.
The Lincoln County News again requested access to a copy of the probable cause affidavit, as well as the police report, on July 21.
The News has also requested transcripts of the July 11 plea hearing.
