SKOWHEGAN — A former Athens fire chief and local school board member serving a 20-year sentence for sexually assaulting a young girl was back in court Wednesday as part of his bid for a new sentence.
Sean Boyd, 48, is claiming in his petition for post-conviction review that his defense attorney, Drew Ketterer, provided ineffective counsel while representing him during his case, most of which was focused on preparing for a sentencing hearing. Boyd is asking for his sentence to be vacated and for the opportunity to argue for a new sentence.
The petition has, in effect, put prosecutors with the Somerset County district attorney’s office in the position of defending Ketterer’s effectiveness as a defense attorney to argue for upholding the previously imposed sentence.
In April 2023, Boyd was sentenced to 20 years in prison to be followed by 20 years of supervised release, according to court records. Boyd, who was arrested in July 2022, pleaded guilty to one Class A count of gross sexual assault and one Class B count of unlawful sexual contact at his arraignment just a few months after he was charged.
Boyd first filed his petition for post-conviction review in April 2024, a few months after the Maine Supreme Judicial Court denied a sentencing appeal, court records show. The petition has since been inching toward Wednesday’s hearing.
Chief Judge Brent Davis — the same judge who sentenced Boyd in 2023 and called the case “incredibly troubling” at the time — heard several hours of testimony at the Skowhegan District Court on Wednesday from Ketterer, Boyd and one of Boyd’s social workers.
It is unclear when Davis will rule on the petition. First Assistant District Attorney Tim Snyder and Jennifer Cohen, Boyd’s court-appointed, post-conviction attorney, are to submit written arguments within the next 45 days.
Boyd, through his attorney, has pointed to several reasons Ketterer, a well-known attorney in central Maine who served three terms as Maine’s attorney general, was ineffective.
Among them, and the focus of much of Wednesday’s testimony, was whether Ketterer should have withdrawn as Boyd’s attorney due to a conflict of interest.
Boyd testified, and Cohen wrote in court filings, that he disclosed to Ketterer a local doctor had sexually abused him on several occasions when he was a child through his late adolescence.
Ketterer was good friends with the doctor, who was not named in court or in legal filings.
Ketterer testified that Boyd told him about a sexual encounter he had with the doctor when Boyd was an adult, but did not tell him about the pattern of abuse that Boyd claims he did. Ketterer said he determined there was no conflict because what Boyd told him about occurred when Boyd was an adult and appeared consensual.
At his sentencing hearing, which included testimony from about a dozen witnesses, Boyd wanted Ketterer to focus on his childhood trauma caused by the doctor and his father.
Ketterer said he advised against calling an expert on the topic, saying the link between childhood sexual trauma and adult offenders is common knowledge and there were many other aspects of the case to focus on. Ketterer did call Boyd’s sister, who testified about Boyd’s father abusing him as a child.
Boyd’s two social workers also testified at sentencing about his low risk to reoffend, although Boyd now claims Ketterer should have questioned them more about Boyd’s childhood sexual trauma. Such testimony could have been exculpatory, Cohen argued.
Boyd’s other claims include that Ketterer did not object to certain aspects of the sentencing hearing, including District Attorney Maeghan Maloney’s description of the case. Maloney, the top prosecutor for Kennebec and Somerset counties, personally handled the prosecution.
Ketterer agreed that some of Maloney’s statements were unclear, such as how many sexual assaults the state was alleging, but testified that Boyd never asked him to object. On the witness stand, Boyd said he did ask Ketterer to object to certain statements, and it was possible Ketterer did not hear him.
“She obviously put her spin on the witnesses’ testimony,” Ketterer said of Maloney.
Boyd is also claiming Ketterer did not inform him probation conditions prohibiting contact with his own minor children were to go in effect immediately during his prison sentence. The conditions, however, were amended after the sentencing to allow supervised contact with his children.
Ketterer testified he considers Boyd a friend, and he knew of Boyd’s family before representing him. He spoke highly of his relationship with Boyd, and the two shook hands and greeted each other when Ketterer entered and exited the courtroom Wednesday.
“Sean, to me, was a stand-up guy,” Ketterer said, emphasizing Boyd wanted to plead guilty as soon as possible for something he knew was wrong.
Boyd pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting the girl in 2014; she was 9 at the time, according to previous reports. The girl, then a teenager, filed a complaint with the Somerset County Sheriff’s Office in 2022, which Detective Jeremy Leal investigated. Boyd had met the child and her family through church and was a close friend for several years, prosecutors said.
Around the time of his arrest, Boyd had resigned from his position at the Athens Fire Department and on the boards of the Athens Community School and the Alternative Organizational Structure 94.
Boyd, who was handcuffed and wearing orange jail clothing Wednesday, has been serving his sentence at the Maine State Prison in Warren, Department of Corrections records show.
HOW TO GET HELP
IF YOU or someone you know has experienced sexual violence, you can call 1-800-871-7741 for free and confidential help 24 hours a day.
TO LEARN more about sexual violence prevention and response in Maine, visit the Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault website.
