Boothbay Harbor is a town in Lincoln County, Maine, on the Atlantic Coast near Brunswick and Damariscotta. The town’s population is roughly 2,200. Prostitution and sex trafficking have been documented in the communities and unincorporated areas of the county, including within Boothbay Harbor, and this activity and the problems and ancillary crimes it generates results in complaints to law enforcement agencies.

Consumer level demand provides the revenue stream for all prostitution and sex trafficking, and demand reduction tactics have been used by local law enforcement agencies. For example, in June, 2009, the Maine Attorney General’s Office announced that a Lincoln County jury found a former Physician’s Assistant guilty of Unlawful Trafficking in Scheduled Drugs (Class B), Four Counts of Violation of Privacy (Class D), Engaging a Prostitute (Class D), and Theft by Deception (Class C). The jury was deadlocked on one count of Unlawful Trafficking in Scheduled Drugs (Class B) and one count of Unlawful Furnishing Scheduled Drugs (Class C). The offender had worked as a Physician’s Assistant at his Urgent Care clinic in Boothbay Harbor from 1997 through 2006. In June of 2006, the Healthcare Crimes Unit of the Attorney General’s Office opened an investigation after one of the man’s female patients reported that he had been “trying to obtain sexual favors in exchange for narcotics prescriptions.” In a recorded phone call, the man offered a second female patient 10 Vicodin pills in exchange for sex. After two controlled purchases of drugs and prescriptions monitored by law enforcement, Healthcare Crimes detectives, assisted by officers of the Boothbay Harbor Police Department and the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department, executed a search warrant at the man’s clinic in July of 2006. During the search, the officers discovered that the suspect had installed cameras hidden in clock radios in a bathroom and three apartments rented to tenants in the upstairs of the clinic. Images of the tenants’ beds and the toilet in the bathroom were transmitted to a computer monitor in the man’s exam room. The man’s employment at the clinic was terminated, and his identity was publicly disclosed.  On September 12, 2006, the offender voluntarily agreed to immediate and permanent revocation of his medical license and agreed he would never again apply for a physician’s assistant’s license. That information was forwarded to all state medical licensing boards.

In February, 2012, two men and one woman were arrested by Boothbay Harbor police and faced charges related to prostitution. One local man was arrested and charged with “engaging a prostitute” and the woman was charged with “engaging in prostitution.” A third person was arrested on a warrant and charged with “promotion of prostitution.”  The initial arrests of the man and woman stemmed from police investigating “a suspicious vehicle” near Bay Street and Summit Road in Boothbay Harbor around 2 a.m. on February 16, 2012. The identities of all three individuals were publicly reported.