SKOWHEGAN — “You lowlifes deserve a home invasion.” “If you badge-wearing low-life children got murdered it would be justifiable.”

“I could see how someone would want to murder all your family members.” “Ken Mason should do us all a favor and swallow a bullet.”

“Next cop I see I’m going to murder.”

Nicholas J. Worthing, left, listens as his defense lawyer, Jeremy Pratt, speaks during a 2023 hearing at the Capital Judicial Center in Augusta. Worthing went on trial Tuesday at the Somerset County Courthouse, accused of stalking the Kennebec County sheriff, after an agreement was reached to move the case out of Kennebec County. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal file

Those were among the threatening phrases included in dozens of profanity-filled messages that prosecutors believe Nicholas J. Worthing, 37, of Pittston sent over several years to the Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page and directed at Sheriff Ken Mason.

But whether Worthing is guilty of one Class C count of stalking for sending those messages — if he did, in fact, write them — is for District Court Judge Andrew Benson to determine.

Benson did not deliver a verdict after hearing evidence in a bench trial Tuesday morning at the Somerset County Superior Court.

The judge instead asked the prosecution and defense to submit legal briefs in the coming weeks that address several issues the case has raised, including if any of Worthing’s alleged speech was protected under the First Amendment and how a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a key case dealing with free speech and stalking, Counterman v. Colorado, should apply. Maine’s Supreme Judicial Court considered the implications of that decision last year.

Benson did not say when he anticipates a verdict.

“This is a case that I believe has major First Amendment implications,” Worthing’s lawyer, Ryan Rutledge, of the Skowhegan law firm Mills, Shay, Lexier & Talbot, said in his opening statement. “And it’s further complicated — and appears to be the direct result of the advancement of technology and the law trying to catch up with it over time. I believe that this is the criminalization of one’s ability to criticize government officials.”

Worthing’s case has been making its way toward a trial for about three and a half years, due, in part, to various attempts to get two stalking charges on a 2021 indictment dismissed based on legal issues similar to those raised Tuesday. Worthing also has gone through nearly a dozen court-appointed defense lawyers, despite a stern warning from a judge that he was at risk of losing his right to counsel.

Prosecutors dropped a more severe, Class B, stalking count on the indictment last year. They also agreed to move the case out of Kennebec County to Somerset County, which is within the same prosecutorial district, after initially objecting to Worthing’s request to change venue in 2023.

The remaining Class C count alleges that Worthing engaged in conduct directed toward Mason “that would cause a reasonable person to fear bodily injury or to fear bodily relation to a close relation,” between Jan. 8, 2017, and Aug. 3, 2021.

Worthing, who pleaded guilty to misdemeanor-level stalking of a state trooper in 2018, was arrested in August 2021 and has since been out of jail on bail, court records show.

On the witness stand Tuesday, Mason said when his office’s official Facebook page began receiving the messages, he did not consider them to be criminal.

The messages, Mason testified, were brought to his attention by the two people who run the Facebook account: a civilian employee of the Sheriff’s Office and Mason’s wife, who is not a Sheriff’s Office employee. Mason said he does not personally access the page.

Twenty-three messages specifically mentioned Mason, according to prosecutor Timothy Snyder, first assistant district attorney in the Somerset County district attorney’s office.

Many messages presented in court claimed Mason and other law enforcement officers had molested children. Mason denied having ever molested children. Mason also said when the messages began, he did not know Worthing and was not sure what exactly prompted them.

“I had no idea what he was talking about,” Mason said.

Mason, who said law enforcement officers are frequently subjected to criticism and harsh language, said his concern grew over time as the messages began to contain what he saw as threats of violence toward him, his family and other law enforcement officers.

At some point, Mason said he shared the archived messages with Maeghan Maloney, the district attorney for Kennebec and Somerset counties. He also referred them to the Maine State Police to investigate.

The Maine State Police issued a cease harassment notice to Worthing in May 2021, according to court records and testimony from the trooper who served it. Mason testified he did not request the order and was not sure if state police or Maloney decided it should be issued.

Now-retired state police Lt. Patrick Hood testified he received a complaint from Mason a few months later regarding a message that contained a threat toward Mason, Hood and state police Trooper Eric Verhille.

Hood subsequently obtained a search warrant for Facebook records, and the social media platform issued a certificate of authentication and provided data that identified the sender as Worthing, though he admitted he never saw Worthing send the messages and it was possible someone else sent them from his account.

A few days later, Hood obtained an arrest warrant for Worthing, court records show.

Worthing elected not to testify at Tuesday’s trial. His lawyer, Rutledge, did not call witnesses or submit evidence.

Rutledge pressed Mason on cross-examination to explain how the Facebook messages differed from other criticism he has received as an elected public official. The apparent threats of violence were what crossed the line, Mason answered.

While he said his wife, the one directly receiving the messages, was scared, Mason said he was not afraid of Worthing. Mason was fearful, though, that he may do something.

Asked by Rutledge whether people should be allowed to criticize government officials, Mason said yes. Asked whether freedom of speech is a fundamental right, Mason answered that the kind of speech in the Facebook messages sent to his page was not a “basic right.”

As the trial reached its conclusion, Rutledge asked Benson to dismiss the charge against Worthing due to insufficient evidence for several required aspects of proving the stalking charge.

Benson denied Rutledge’s motion.