AUGUSTA — A Clinton man found guilty last week of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old boy now faces additional charges involving another boy.

On Sept. 17, a Kennebec County jury found Christopher Connors, 39, guilty of gross sexual assault and unlawful sexual contact for a June 2023 incident involving a boy who spent the night at his Clinton home.

A second boy, who was 10 years old at the time, was also at Connors’ home that night, testimony during the three-day trial indicated. But no allegations involving the younger boy, who slept in the same room as the other boy that night, were made at trial.

For the case decided last week, Connors faces a potential maximum sentence of up to life in prison on the Class A crime of gross sexual assault.

Most Class A felonies have a maximum of up to 30 years in prison, but the crime of gross sexual assault, when it involves a child younger than 12, can be sentenced under Maine law to up to any number of years in prison.

Sentencing on those two counts is set for Nov. 6.

Daniel Dube, Connors’ attorney, said an appeal is likely, especially given the potential long prison sentence Connors is facing.

Dube said he thought in his defense of Connors that he was able to counter the state’s DNA evidence tying Connors to the crime, which included Connors’ DNA recovered from the boy’s clothes and body. He said Connors’s DNA could have transferred onto the boy in ways other than sexual assault.

Authorities failed to investigate the allegations fully, he said, and focused entirely upon Connors as the only suspect.

“None of the state’s witnesses worked to exclude other possibilities,” Dube said. “There was no investigation in this case, only prosecution.”

Meaghan Maloney, district attorney for Kennebec and Somerset counties, praised the victim and his family, Clinton police who solved the crime, and officials involved in helping the boy and investigating and prosecuting the case “for working together to convict Christopher Connors and protect future children from him. The family trusted the system to bring justice for their child and this verdict has done just that.”

The boy testified he told his parents about what Connors did to him the morning after the incident. The boy told a Children’s Advocacy Center interviewer he ran to the bathroom and locked the door to get away from Connors after the assault. The boy said Connors was outside the bathroom, urging him not to tell anyone.

After the verdict and after the jury had left the courtroom and bail for Connors was being discussed, prosecutor Amanda Seekins, an assistant district attorney, mentioned that Connors had another case against him.

Court records show Connors was arraigned in August on charges of gross sexual assault, four counts of unlawful sexual contact, and one count of visual sexual aggression against a child under 12 years old.

One of the three allegations regarding the 10 year old is tied to the same night Connors assaulted the older boy, while the other two are alleged to have happened another time, Dube confirmed. They all occurred in Clinton.

Dube, who is representing Connors on the newer charges, said there are weaknesses in the second case.

Connors was ordered held without bail until his sentencing by Superior Court Justice Daniel Mitchell.