AUGUSTA — At-Large City Councilor Courtney Gary-Allen recently obtained a protection from harassment order against conservative activist and school board candidate Nicholas Blanchard after she reported Blanchard following and intimidating her, court records show.

According to her complaint, Blanchard confronted and recorded Gary-Allen, staff and guests several times over the course of three weeks outside the Maine Recovery Action Project center at 47 Water St., where Gary-Allen serves as executive director.

Due to his “persistent harassing conduct,” Gary-Allen wrote in an April 24 complaint, “I do not feel safe because of Blanchard and my staff feels the same.”

District Judge Erika Bristol granted a temporary order on April 27 that prohibits Blanchard from visiting the ME-RAP center or interacting with Gary-Allen.

Blanchard, a conservative activist and school board candidate who has gained thousands of followers on social media using the moniker “Corn Pop,” has denied all of Gary-Allen’s accusations.

He said his interactions with Gary-Allen have been in the interest of accountability, and he filed a sworn statement with the Augusta Police Department saying Gary-Allen’s accusations were false and intended to target him for political reasons.

“This isn’t about safety,” Blanchard wrote in an April 27 Facebook post. “This is about a public official who can’t handle scrutiny trying to weaponize the police and courts to shut down legitimate questions about how our tax dollars are being spent at a place that affects kids and neighborhoods.”

He filed his own protection from harassment order against Gary-Allen on May 1. Bristol dismissed Blanchard’s case after he failed to pay a $55 filing fee, court records show.

In addition to filming outside the ME-RAP center, Gary-Allen wrote that Blanchard attended an April 9 community cleanup event, where she said he “verbally harassed and filmed” volunteers, causing some to fear participating in future cleanup events. On another occasion, Blanchard filmed himself taking items from the public access box outside the center, which she said intimidated guests and staff.

Gary-Allen also wrote that Blanchard’s posting of a picture of her son — which was available only on her private Facebook page, from which Blanchard is blocked — on his own social media was “extremely emotionally distressing” and led her to keep her son home from school the following day out of fear for his safety.

Blanchard has also apparently followed her to other places in the city, she wrote. Gary-Allen said she saw Blanchard at the Cony Street Hannaford four days after reporting his conduct to Augusta police and obtaining a cease harassment notice against him. In a second complaint with Augusta police, Gary-Allen said she hid in the back of the store until her husband arrived.

Blanchard live-streamed an Augusta Police Department officer serving him the harassment notice. He told the officer that artificial intelligence informed him his posts and interactions with Gary-Allen were, in fact, constitutional.

Bristol held a hearing in the case last week and a decision on a longer-term harassment order is expected in the coming days.

In the meantime, Blanchard has continued to post online about the case and his frustration with what he sees as the weaponization of Augusta police against him.

Blanchard’s dismay with Augusta police is long-standing. He was arrested and released during a No Kings protest in October after another attendee reported that he had a gun. Blanchard said in an online statement he had a Byrna gun, a nonlethal self-defense weapon, on him at the time.  Blanchard sued the department in January for depriving him “of the ability to engage in speech at the No Kings protest, and he suffered emotional distress and embarrassment from the arrest.”

He also is the plaintiff in a lawsuit against the Augusta Board of Education over its public comment policy. A federal judge ruled last month that board could not constitutionally enforce some of its policies, and the board recently changed its rules to comply with the judge’s order.