A Somerset County Jail transport officer was ordered by a court to surrender his work-issued firearm and now faces a domestic violence charge for an incident that may have involved his work-issued pepper spray.

The corrections officer, Giovanni V. Sinclair, has also been placed on administrative leave pending the completion of an internal affairs investigation, according to Somerset County Sheriff Dale Lancaster, whose office operates the Madison jail.

Lancaster said he could not disclose the subject of that investigation, as it is ongoing.

Sinclair, 40, of Albion, was arrested Feb. 4 on a warrant out of Penobscot County for Class D domestic violence assault, a misdemeanor-level charge, court records show.

After his arrest, Sinclair was taken to the Kennebec County Correctional Facility in Augusta, according to court records and the jail’s intake department. He posted $1,500 cash bail and was released from custody later that day.

Sinclair’s arraignment for the domestic violence assault charge is scheduled for March 3 at the Penobscot Judicial Center in Bangor. He has not yet entered a plea.

Sinclair had earlier been ordered to surrender his county-issued firearm when served a temporary protection from abuse order in December, court records show.

That order, out of Waterville District Court, is what spurred the criminal investigation, according to a report by Christian Behr of the Kennebec County district attorney’s office filed in support of the domestic violence charge.

Efforts to reach the attorney who represented Sinclair in the protection order proceedings, Triston A. Peters of the Skowhegan law firm Mills, Shay, Lexier & Talbot, via telephone and email were unsuccessful. Peters had also advised Sinclair regarding investigators’ attempts to speak with him during the criminal investigation, according to Behr’s report.

In the pending criminal case, Sinclair had no attorney listed in court records as of mid-February.

A voicemail left at Sinclair’s cell phone number listed in court records was not returned Tuesday.

Behr’s investigation led Garry Higgins, an investigator for the Penobscot County district attorney’s office, to obtain the warrant for Sinclair’s arrest, court records show.

Both Sinclair and the woman who requested the protection order against him— described in court records as a former domestic partner who has two children with Sinclair — have addresses listed in Albion in Kennebec County. They lived previously in Holden in Penobscot County, Behr’s report says.

The Morning Sentinel does not identify alleged victims of domestic violence without their consent.

Per the temporary protection from abuse order, issued Dec. 3, Sinclair was required to turn over his firearms. After a hearing Jan. 9, a judge issued a final protection from abuse order for one year, which upheld the firearms restriction and states the court found Sinclair posed a “credible threat” to the safety of the woman and their children, court records show.

When authorities served the temporary order in December, Sinclair surrendered his Somerset County-issued firearm, as well as one other, according to a Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office report filed in court.

Somerset County officials were made aware of the protection order, Behr’s report says.

Detective Ronnie Blodgett, a domestic violence investigator for the Somerset County district attorney’s office, told Behr the day after Sinclair was served the order that the Somerset County Sheriff’s Office was conducting an internal investigation involving Sinclair.

Blodgett told Behr that the Sheriff’s Office was requesting he investigate whether there was criminal conduct in Kennebec County to be reported.

According to Behr’s report, the alleged victim reported several potential criminal offenses to him.

Behr concluded based on his investigation that while the woman and Sinclair were living in Holden in April 2023 as domestic partners with their children, Sinclair “pepper sprayed (the woman) in the face, without provocation or reason. He also had attempted to use his handcuffs to handcuff her just prior to being pepper sprayed.”

The woman reported the pepper spray was issued for Sinclair’s job as a corrections officer, according to the report.

This incident appears to have been what led to the criminal charge in Penobscot County, although the date on the criminal complaint does not match the date in the report.

The report also concluded that in November 2024, when the woman was living in Albion, without Sinclair, he allegedly threatened her and the children while searching for a cat, a family pet.

“(Sinclair) used his Somerset County Sheriff’s Office issued firearm with attached flashlight to search the area, at night in darkness, for the cat,” Behr wrote. “During this time, (Sinclair) pointed his firearm in the direction of (the woman) and their two children, causing fear and distress.”

Behr described several attempts to contact Sinclair directly and through Peters, his attorney in the protection order proceedings, to discuss the case. The report says Sinclair ultimately declined to talk with Behr.

The alleged conduct described in the police report involving the firearm has not yet led to any criminal charge in Kennebec County.

Maeghan Maloney, district attorney for Kennebec and Somerset counties, confirmed that her office is reviewing the case and is in communication with the Penobscot County district attorney’s office.

“We will be deciding together how best to proceed,” Maloney wrote in a message.

During the protection order proceedings in Waterville, Sinclair “categorically” denied he pointed the firearm at the woman or the children.

“While this allegation is substantial, it does not provide the full context,” Sinclair’s attorney, Peters, wrote in court filings.

“It should be noted that Giovanni was helping look for a cat, at night, in a wooded area where coyotes are often heard howling. When it is nighttime and when there are coyotes around and the belief was that the cat was out in the woods, having a firearm with a flashlight is not unwarranted or unreasonable.”

Pepper spray and a firearm are among the items issued to corrections officers who transport inmates, according to Lancaster, the Somerset County sheriff.

Lancaster said Sinclair, employed by the county since October 2020, was licensed as a part-time law enforcement officer to be able to transport inmates, Lancaster said.

“Once a correctional officer leaves the grounds, their authority is extremely limited,” Lancaster said. “And so, to protect the county, I have the corrections officers that do transports, armed transports, be part-time certified.”

Lancaster declined to answer whether officers, in general, are allowed to take those weapons home, citing the ongoing internal affairs and criminal investigations involving Sinclair.