SKOWHEGAN — Prosecutors on Monday dismissed the second criminal case they had brought against the former superintendent of the Anson-Madison Water District, bringing an end to a yearslong legal saga.

The dismissal, which the prosecutor handling the case said was based on issues with admissibility of evidence, marked the second time prosecutors dropped their case against Michael Corson at the last second before a trial was set to begin.

“There’s no evidence,” said Darrick X. Banda, Corson’s attorney, outside the courtroom at the Somerset County Superior Court. “That’s what I’ve been saying all along. The charge should never have been brought. There’s no evidence of any wrongdoing. There’s never been any evidence of wrongdoing.”

Corson, who had previously been accused of theft from the Water District, was charged with one Class C, felony-level count of aggravated criminal invasion of computer privacy. 

A Somerset County grand jury indictment returned in July 2024 alleged Corson, 56, of Madison, “did intentionally or knowingly damage a computer resource of Anson-Madison Water District, having no reasonable ground to believe that he had the right to do so” between Nov. 23, 2021, and March 12, 2022.

Corson had pleaded not guilty, as he did to the prior theft charges that prosecutors ultimately dismissed in March 2024. According to Banda, Corson also rejected a plea offer in the computer privacy case that would have resulted in a misdemeanor conviction but no jail time or fines.

A panel of jurors, selected Aug. 28, reported at 8:30 a.m. Monday, expecting a two-day trial.

While they waited in the jury room, Banda, Assistant District Attorney Jonathan Provisor and Superior Court Chief Justice Robert E. Mullen were meeting in Mullen’s chambers.

Banda came out to the courtroom shortly before 9 a.m., and appeared to be reviewing case files and speaking with Corson. A few minutes later, a court marshal called Banda back to Mullen’s chambers.

When Banda returned, he told Corson and three of his family members who were seated in the gallery that the case had been dismissed. Some appeared visibly shocked to hear the news.

Mullen then called the jurors into the courtroom and told them they were free to go.

“It’s because you were here, ready to go, that people took a good, hard look at the case and decided to get rid of it,” Mullen said to the jury.

On the dismissal form filed with the court, Provisor checked off “insufficient evidence” as the reason the state was dropping the case.

In a phone call later Monday, Provisor said that during the discussion in chambers, Mullen indicated that key evidence for the state would be inadmissible during the trial. He declined to be more specific about that evidence, but said it had to do with access to Water District computer systems.

“With those rulings making those statements and pieces of evidence inadmissible, we would no longer be able to prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt,” Provisor said.

Provisor said he made the decision to dismiss the case. He said Maeghan Maloney, district attorney for Kennebec and Somerset counties, asked him to answer a reporter’s questions about the case, as she was not directly involved in the conversation Monday morning.

“This is the end of the road,” Provisor said. “There are no further charges coming.”

Banda, a criminal defense attorney based in Augusta who practices across Maine, said it is common for cases to be resolved the closer they get to trial, even the morning a trial is set to begin. Both prosecutors and defense attorneys have to consider what may realistically happen when the case goes before a jury, he said, and that reality sets as the trial date approaches.

But Banda said he has never seen prosecutors drop two related cases against the same defendant, both right as jury trials were set to begin.

“I probably should go buy more Powerball tickets,” he joked.

An emotional Corson said outside the courtroom that the two criminal cases against him, the first of which started in late 2021, have taken a significant toll on him and his family.

Corson, who was fired from his job as Water District superintendent shortly after the initial theft allegations, said he had found a new job at one point but has not been able to work recently due to physical health issues.

“I’ve known Mike the whole time, and I can tell you, I’ve seen the toll it’s taken on him, not just emotionally, but physically,” Banda said. “I can see it in his face. It’s stress. I can see the stress.”

Corson’s wife, Shelley Corson, said her whole family has stuck behind her husband throughout the lengthy legal process that led to the dismissal.

“This is a huge relief, not only for Michael, but for the whole family,” she said. 

Michael Corson and a district foreman, Michael Jordan, were originally charged with theft in December 2021 following a Somerset County Sheriff’s Office investigation that began with a tip from a member of the Water District’s board of trustees.

Investigators believed at the time that the two had sold old water lines to a scrap metal dealer and kept the proceeds totaling more than $12,000. Keeping the proceeds was alleged to have been against the district’s policy, although one industry leader told the Morning Sentinel that is a common practice in Maine.

Both Corson and the foreman were fired. Around the same time, the district also fired its entire staff, and its trustees began contracting with the Maine Rural Water Association to operate the district.

In February 2022, the theft charges against Corson and Jordan were dropped after Maloney’s office said it learned of new evidence.

But prosecutors soon reversed course, and a Somerset County grand jury indicted Corson on two counts of theft later that month. Jordan was not indicted at that time.

At the time, Banda called the move a politically motivated decision in response to public backlash following the earlier dismissal. Maloney, the district attorney, the week prior had called it a case of public corruption.

Corson pleaded not guilty to the theft charges in April 2022.

In August 2023, a Somerset County grand jury returned a superseding indictment that added two counts of theft. Corson ultimately faced class B, C, D and E counts of theft by misapplication of property. The different classes accounted for different dollar values of the items stolen, with the most severe Class B count alleging theft of property with a value of more than $10,000.

Prosecutors dismissed those charges right as the trial was set to begin in March 2024. Maloney said at the time the move came after closed-door discussions, which also led to her office filing the computer privacy charge. There were similar issues in the theft case with inadmissible evidence, Provisor said Monday.

Banda tried to get the new computer privacy charge dismissed earlier this year. He argued that prosecutors did not move forward with the case “with due diligence.” Mullen, the justice presiding over the trial, denied the motion.

What exactly prosecutors believed Corson did was unclear, beyond the one-sentence indictment.

The language in the indictment is defined in state statute. Damage means “to destroy, alter, disrupt, delete, add, modify, or rearrange any computer resource by any means.” Computer resource means “a computer program, computer software, computer system, computer network, computer information or any combination thereof.”

A few months after Corson was initially charged with theft, in March 2022, the Water District sued Corson in U.S. District Court in Bangor, alleging he changed passwords to important Water District email and software applications while on administrative leave and did not provide them after he was fired.

Water District staff, however, regained access to the accounts soon after the lawsuit was filed. Both sides agreed to dismiss the federal lawsuit in May 2022 as they had reached a settlement, according to court records.

The settlement agreement was confidential, according to Banda and Kirsten Hebert, executive director of the Maine Rural Water Association.

Provisor, the prosecutor, said the lawsuit and details of the settlement agreement were not the basis of the evidentiary issues.

Hebert did not reply to an email Monday morning seeking comment about the outcome of the criminal cases against Corson. 

Somerset County Sheriff Dale Lancaster, whose office investigated both the theft and computer privacy cases, also did not respond to an inquiry.