Case against Milliken dismissed
District Attorney Bob Granger (background, center) presents his proposed departmental budget to the Hancock County Budget Advisory Committee on October 8. Granger had called for the recusal of Rep. Nina Milliken (foreground, right) from the committee, citing a conflict of interest stemming from a charge of electioneering. That charge was dismissed two days later. Photo by Tricia Thomas.
By Tricia Thomas
ELLSWORTH—A case against state representative Nina Milliken (D-Blue Hill) for alleged electioneering at a municipal election last April has been dismissed.
In a statement released on Oct. 9, Knox County district attorney Natasha C. Irving said her decision to dismiss the case was based on “new evidence” presented a day earlier, on Oct. 8, by Milliken’s attorney, Will Ashe, of Ashe Law Offices in Ellsworth.
“This information leads me to believe that Rep. Milliken was acting in conformity with Maine law and in consultation with the Secretary of State,” Irving stated in a press release.
“The evidence in the original Sheriff’s Office report included witnesses who did not hear Rep. Milliken make unlawful statements, and three witnesses who indicated that Rep. Milliken’s statements did violate statute. Attorney Ashe was able to speak with two of the three witnesses who previously indicated Rep. Milliken’s statements violated statute and based on those conversations it is clear that they are not certain they heard specific statements that violate Maine law,” Irving said.
Irving also cited evidence supplied by Milliken herself as another reason for dropping the case.
‘[P]arty affiliation and political beliefs have absolutely
no bearing on innocence or guilt.’
—Knox County district attorney Natasha C. Irving
“Rep. Milliken was also able to produce evidence that she sent text messages to the Secretary of State [Shenna Bellows] regarding her statements while at the polling place on the morning in question. She told the Secretary of State what statements she made and asked if this was in conformity with the law. The Secretary replied that it was,” Irving said. “This new evidence paints a new and more complete picture of the events of that day and leads me to believe that Rep. Milliken did not make any illegal statements, and the case must be dismissed with prejudice immediately.”
Milliken was charged on Sept. 5 with one count of attempting “to influence another person’s decision” within 250 feet of a polling place during municipal elections on April 4. She has denied the charge in recent news reports, and pleaded ‘not guilty’ to the Class-E misdemeanor charge on September 9. Milliken also was due for a dispositional conference with the judge and attorneys involved to discuss next steps on December 12.
In her statement, Irving said that neither the original charge, nor the dismissal, were politically motivated.
“Many will react to this news with the belief that this dismissal is politically motivated. Many will react to this news with the belief that the charges were politically motivated. I am skeptical that there is anything I can say to sway the beliefs of those entrenched in their opinions,” she said. “What I hope to convey to Maine citizens on both sides of this divide, and all of us in the middle, is that party affiliation and political beliefs have absolutely no bearing on innocence or guilt.”
“In Maine and in the United States, it is not the citizen that is required to prove their innocence to the state, but the state must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to the citizens who serve on a jury of the accused peers,” she continued.
Milliken, Ashe and Bellows did not respond to requests for comment on the dismissal. Irving, Granger and Hancock County Sheriff Scott Kane also did not respond to similar requests.
Both Granger and Kane had made recent comments to the press questioning Milliken’s objectivity in reviewing and approving their proposed departmental budgets for 2026, which are being vetted this month by the Hancock County Budget Advisory Committee (BAC). Both Granger and Kane said that Milliken, a legislative member of the committee, should recuse herself due to the pending charge.
“I feel it’s a conflict of interest,” Kane said in a telephone interview on October 7. “If someone has a case pending, they should recuse themselves.”
During a more than three-hour Budget Advisory Committee meeting on October 8, Milliken and fellow committee members questioned Granger and Kane about their budgets and proposed increases and voted whether to accept them as submitted or to approve different amounts proposed by county commissioners.
“I feel I was fair,” Milliken said after the meeting. “I feel that how I vote on these types of budgets has always been, consistently, the same.”
Milliken, who is in her second legislative term representing the towns of Blue Hill, Brooksville, Castine, Sedgwick, Surry and Trenton, also serves on the state house’s Criminal Justice, Public Safety and House Elections committees.
By dismissing the case against Milliken “with prejudice,” a legal term that means the case is over and cannot be retried, Irving effectively ended the possibility for any re-opening or new charges.
“With the new information brought to light by defense counsel in this matter,” Irving said, “the only just result is a dismissal of criminal charges.”
—This story updates an earlier article published Oct. 8 by The Rising Tide.
