Lincoln County Sheriff’s Deputy Ken Hatch has been charged with two counts of class C sexual abuse of a minor and is on administrative leave.
The Maine Attorney General’s Office is investigating. Tim Feeley, a spokesman for the office, confirmed the felony charges in an email. The maximum sentence for a class C crime is five years in prison.
Hatch, 45, of Whitefield, was arrested at Two Bridges Regional Jail in Wiscasset on Tuesday, June 21 and released on $50,000 unsecured bail, according to Feeley and a report in the Bangor Daily News.
Lincoln County Sheriff Todd Brackett said in an email that his office “cannot and will not make any comments.”
Hatch was previously a detective sergeant with the sheriff’s office, a position responsible for the day-to-day supervision of the agency’s three other detectives, as well as for investigating cases.
He is currently a patrol deputy and shellfish warden, according to the LCSO website. He was placed on leave Thursday, June 16, according to the Bangor Daily News.
Brackett presented an award to Hatch and Deputy 1st Class Brian Collamore in April for saving the life of an elderly Whitefield man on March 31, 2015.
Hatch and Collamore’s “compassion, skills, and professionalism are a testament to their commitment to the people of Lincoln County and the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office,” Brackett said at the time.
Hatch joined the sheriff’s office in 1999.
