The Pre-Obituary of Eliot Cutler

Despite flawed assessment test, Maine megalomaniac millionaire gets out of jail early

(This extra lengthy Crash Report is full of never-before-reported details and facts. While Cutler isn’t dead yet, I wanted to cover his life and crimes before he kicks the bucket. Upon his death, this will be republished as “The Obituary of Eliot Cutler.”)

Eliot Cutler should’ve died in prison. After all, in 2022 investigators found over 80,000 images of child sexual abuse on electronics owned by the former bigwig D.C. lawyer and two-time Maine independent gubernatorial candidate. Many of the videos showed the violent rape of children. The investigation began after a robotic monitoring system on the Dropbox file sharing platform discovered that in late 2021, while signed in with his eliot.cutler @ gmail.com account, Cutler had uploaded a 447 GB folder of illicit images, including a video of an adult male raping a four year-old girl.

Despite the preponderance of evidence that was more than enough to merit a federal trial, in May of 2023, Cutler and his lawyer negotiated a plea deal on the state level, with Cutler to serve a mere 9 months behind bars, starting on June 1. On Jan. 18, 2024, thanks to “good behavior,” the 78-year-old lawyer was released from Hancock County Jail after serving only 7 months.

Which is bullshit for many reasons. Mostly because Cutler’s crimes are so heinous and of such a huge number, he deserves to spend the rest of his life incarcerated. His hoard of digital filth was a giant crime against children and our community. Some, like his lawyer, might argue that his perversion is an addiction. Maybe, but I don’t care. To me, his actions were a crime.

Also, as I will explain later, the assessment system used by his lawyer and shrinks to argue to the court that Cutler wouldn’t re-offend is considered seriously flawed. According to a recent study published in a journal by the American Psychological Association, such assessments (like Cutler’s) should especially NOT be used in the U.S. courts. Plus I’ll discuss how Cutler’s treatment plan reveals more evidence of his privilege. All to demonstrate how Cutler’s millionaire status enabled his deviant behavior, and how his money and alleged “history of public service” unjustly mitigated his eventual punishment.

An untold number of kids were victimized to create content for his collection of rape videos. Many will be haunted for the rest of their lives after being forced to do terrible things on film. Some will use drugs and booze to dull the pain and blot out the memories of the camera and crimes. Some will kill themselves. Others will overdose. All will be forever harmed. Damaged for eternity, just to satisfy the demands of the hordes of sickos (like the two-time independent candidate for Maine governor) who create a market for such repulsive content.

Cutler should’ve died behind bars. Instead, because of wealth and privilege, Cutler is home free, except for conditions of release and probation.

CONTENT WARNING: Some of what follows is disturbing and not for the faint of heart. The existence of Cutler’s huge cache of child sexual abuse material and child rape videos is mentioned throughout TCR #2. Also, there’s some discussion of the current psychological modalities being used to treat digital criminals like Cutler. Sensitive reader be forewarned.

The proper terminology to describe the content found on Cutler’s electronics is “child sexual abuse material” or CSAM. I’ll also being using the terms “child rape videos.” Unfortunately, law enforcement and the justice system improperly use the term “child pornography.” So does the cottage industry of therapy that’s sprung up to counsel criminals like Cutler. And the media uses the “C.P.” term in headlines and in reporting on the issue. To be blunt: pornography implies consent. Obviously, the child victims of this crime didn’t consent. They were raped and abused. Therefore the content created by such activity should be referred to as “child sexual abuse material” or “child rape images” or “child rape video.” I’ve inserted [[CSAM]] in places to replace C.P. references.

One more heads up: Towards the end of this edition of TCR, you’ll encounter a video from 1966, featuring Cutler acting creepily towards the beloved movie star Natalie Wood. Not scary, but cringy and super-weird.

The Scene of the Crime(s)

It was about half past seven on the Friday morning of March 23, 2022, when eleven law enforcement officers descended on the Amen Farm, a 172-year old gem on 47 acres looking down on Blue Hill Bay, in the Hancock County town of Brooklin. The cops believed Cutler was inside the six bedroom, five and a half bath house, because his 2012 Cadillac with conservation license plates was parked in the driveway. Special Agent Glenn Lang of the Maine State Police knocked on the front door. For several minutes, according to Lang’s affidavit, he knocked. Knocked and knocked. No answer. Then he checked the door knob. Unlocked. Since he had a warrant to search the place for CSAM, he opened the door.

“State police,” he announced loudly while entering the farmhouse Cutler purchased in 2017 for $1.5 million. “State police,” he called out again. “Search warrant!” Lang headed upstairs and opened a bedroom door. The room, he noted in the affidavit, had “very few items” except for a large bed, a CPAP machine (that keeps people with sleep apnea breathing), a computer and piles of external drives and USB drives.

Meanwhile, one of his colleagues had found Cutler and his wife in a first floor bedroom, so Lang headed back downstairs. Mrs. Cutler, he wrote, “was in bed, under blankets, her foot elevated as she recently had surgery.” The cop brought Cutler to the kitchen and told him about the search warrant. Then Lang and Cutler returned to the bedroom, where Cutler told his wife, a former lawyer and current psychiatrist who works with children, “the search warrant was for child pornography and officers ‘would probably find some on one of his computers.’”

Talk about an understatement. There were dozens of devices and drives capable of storing digital evidence scattered around the place. Good thing the cops brought the mobile crime unit, because two Computer Crime Lab forensic analysts went right to work culling through an enormous amount of data. It didn’t take long to start finding the horrible stuff. Beginning with more rape videos featuring 4-year-old girls.

Meanwhile Cutler, sitting in the kitchen, made a phone call and told someone at his attorney’s office about the warrant. Then Cutler told a state trooper that “he could make the search much quicker for us by showing us where things are, but he should really wait to talk to his lawyer.” Cutler told another cop searching the kitchen that they wouldn’t find anything in the kitchen. And he wanted his cell phone back, which he assured the officers didn’t have any illegal content on it. Nope.

He then told the cops “he desperately needed a Quicken file for his banking that was stored on his computer and on a thumb drive.” Problem was, the cops couldn’t find the thumb drive. And his computer was already in custody in the police van. So they lugged the computer back inside and set it up. The cops then discovered the missing thumb drive in a pile of papers on Cutler’s desk. A forensic specialist checked the drive. The only item was the Quicken file. So the cops gave the drive to Cutler. Once again, the rich man had access to info about his monies. Crisis averted.

Investigators quickly knew they had enough horrid and illegal material from examining just the first couple of many external drives found in the upstair’s bedroom, aka Cutler’s personal sleeping chamber. A room practically empty, Lang’s affidavit noted twice, except for the bed, the breathing machine and digital drives and computer with more than enough child sexual abuse content to bust the perv-politico with a federal crime.

By noon, they arrested Cutler and brought him to Hancock County Jail where he was charged with four counts of possession of unlawful sexually explicit material of a minor under the age of 12. He spent Friday night behind bars. By Saturday afternoon, Cutler was out on $50,000 bail and ordered to stay off the internet.

Needless to say, all of Maine was stunned by the news. After all, this was the famous rich guy who had come within 10,000 votes of being elected governor in 2010. The “environmental lawyer” who spoiled Libby Mitchell’s shot at being Maine’s first female elected to the Blaine House. And most viewed Cutler as the spoiler candidate for a second time, in 2014, when his giant ego (and an alleged secret deal) gave Paul LePage his 2014 re-election victory, allowing the bombastic gov four more years to torpedo social services and other important programs.

Court papers described Cutler’s cache as a “trove” of CSAM. Cops said he was “a hoarder” of child rape videos. Despite almost everything connected to the case being under seal, it was quickly known that over 80,000 files were found on his electronics. Documents also alleged that Cutler had been collecting rape videos for many years. And some of the content found on his devices dated back to his 2014 campaign.

Once the shock of the news wore off, one thing was obvious. While lots of people knew Cutler was a pompous asshole, nobody had suspected he was a pedo-hoarder of tens of thousands of child rape images.

We’re going to return to how Cutler’s money and privilege got him a short jail sentence and $5,000 fine for his crimes against children. But first, for context, let’s look back at how the pedo-creep influenced the outcome of TWO gubernatorial elections that resulted in the two-time election of a racist buffoon, aka LePage.

The Cutler Files

Back in 2010, during his first bid for the Blaine House, I never understood Cutler’s popularity. It was obvious to me that Cutler was a rich dude trying to buy the governorship and institute his one-percenter ethos on public policy. After all, fellow corporatist and former governor Angus King was his number one cheerleader, which made Cutler’s faux-folksy-populism immediately suspect. Somehow, though, Cutler became the darling of the mainstream press and was given countless free media opportunities to influence the sheeple.

Who didn’t love Cutler?

The multitude of endorsements were mind-boggling, considering that in late August, an amazing combination of muckraking and oppo-research was anonymously and temporarily published via cutlerfiles dot com. (Thankfully, it’s preserved in its entirety here.) Officially titled “The Secret File on Eliot Cutler,” through the lens of the current era of lunatic politics, the content seems tame. The message of the website was simple: Eliot Cutler was not to be trusted. And the Cutler Files had the receipts. Again, this was 2010, so the site was hyper-links galore, proving and reproving the central theme via tons of news reports, financial and legal filings, plus deeds and mortgage information, all detailing and debunking Cutler’s campaign rhetoric that he was a smart businessman and a good lawyer and, in Cutler’s own humble opinion, the man to run Maine.

Most tragic, though, was the Cutler Files’ assertion that Cutler’s bureaucratic incompetence resulted in the deaths of 39 folks, including “twenty children as they slept” who drowned in their beds the night a dam collapsed at Toccia Falls, Georgia in early November 1977. When the dam failed, a 30-foot wall of water crushed houses, double-wides and a dorm at the local bible college, resulting in overwhelming grief and despair. The Cutler Files asserted that Cutler’s role as “Associate Director of the Office of Budget and Management” in Jimmy Carter’s White House made him responsible for the disaster because Cutler dragged his feet implementing a federally funded private dam inspection program that would’ve shown the dam was in dire shape.

I have found several mentions of, but have yet to read the 1978 Pulitzer prize-winning investigative series by the noted journalist Gaylord Shaw showed how the neglected dams and bureaucratic middlemen like Cutler were a looming danger to America’s infrastructure.

The Cutler Files, as a whole, were NEVER challenged for accuracy because the files accurately portrayed Cutler. He was a scheming DC insider, with a money-making focus on airports. Cutler’s actions and activities as an “environmental lawyer” that “played both sides of the runway” were also the subject of critique. So was his role negotiating deals in China that made it easier for U.S. companies to ship jobs overseas. The site also ridiculed Cutler’s faux-folksy manner, trading his custom-cut suits for an L.L. Bean barn coat. And the Cutler Files mocked the Cutler mythology that he had been preparing for the governorship since he was a wee lad.

His mother said he was “not a pretty child.” More on that later.

The Cutler Files were on-line for just two months. During that short time, the site revealed lots of details that painted Cutler in an extremely negative light. Nothing, of course, about his sexual deviancy and massive stash of child rape videos. That secret would remain hidden for another dozen years.

When the Cutler Files first appeared in late August 2010, nobody but Maine political junkies were even aware of the muckraking website. Cutler knew about it though. He was running a web-savvy campaign and was very digital. Hence, his secret disgusting cache.

The smart political response to the Cutler Files would’ve been to just ignore the website. To do otherwise would bring additional attention to the fact-filled files. But Cutler’s giant ego was pissed off, so he filed a complaint with the Maine Ethics Commission. Suddenly, Cutlerfiles dot com became front page news. The lamestream media, however, was more outraged by the anonymity than the allegations.

These days, anonymous political websites are run-of-the-mill and dark-money PACS have become legal and commonplace. But back in the ancient times of the 2010 campaign, the Cutler Files was an anomaly. So the Maine media’s reporting was mostly focused on wondering aloud who was behind the website, with very little attention paid to the details demonstrating that Cutler was not to be trusted.

The legal and “campaign ethics” part of the Cutler Files dragged on for a couple years. Legendary Maine political consultant (and former journo) Dennis Bailey eventually revealed that he was the main brain (and primary author) responsible for the Cutler Files. Turns out local media outlets (and other gubernatorial campaigns) had declined his offer of the intel gathered by him and Thom Rhoads, the husband of Rosa Scarcelli, a Democrat who had just lost her primary bid for gov.

Bailey knew the TRUTH about Cutler needed to get out. He had met Cutler and could tell the dude was an asshole in real life. And he realized early on that Cutler was BAD for Maine. So Bailey (who had worked as an investigative reporter for the Portland Press Herald for almost a decade) designed, reported and then published the Cutler Files.

Bailey wasn’t doing this as a political hired hand for a wealthy client or on behalf of any candidate or party. He published the Cutler Files to educate his fellow Mainers. He argued (eventually with the legal help of the MCLU) that as a private citizen he had a constitutional right to anonymous free speech. Didn’t matter to Augusta, though. The ethics commission fined him two hundred bucks for failing to disclose who paid for the website and whether the “communication was authorized by a candidate.” And Bailey’s efforts to have a judge overturn the decision failed.

Here’s an odd tidbit. The chair of the ethics commission that signed the decision fining Bailey the $200 was Walter McKee. The same lawyer, who in 2023, would negotiate the plea deal that got Cutler nine months behind bars.

Despite the anonymity, I’ll always view the Cutler Files as an excellent example of citizen journalist muckraking that’s never been challenged for accuracy.

(And while I think Bailey is cool for his early anti-Cutler work, I’ll always blame him for being the Dr. Frankenstein responsible for the election of the gubernatorial monster known as Angus King. Back in 1994, when I was a young reporter working at the American Journal in Westbrook, I met and interviewed King. Instantly I knew Mainers weren’t gonna vote for this rich dude from Virginia with an ego the size of a paper mill. Boy was I wrong! Somehow Bailey, the brains behind King’s self-financed independent run, convinced the electorate that King was a normal dude.)

If in 2010, though, Cutler had kept his trap shut, the Cutler Files would’ve disappeared without notice. And he probably would’ve won the election. But his whiny “victimhood” (and the stuff revealed by the Cutler Files) most likely convinced some Dems to stay with Democrat Libby Mitchell. So Cutler ended up in second place, with Paul LePage as the victor, thanks to the three-way split, which all seems like ancient history now.

Without King’s support in 2010, Cutler would not even have finished second. Most of King’s supporters probably would’ve fallen in line, begrudgingly, behind Mitchell, the Democrat who is actually a decent and intelligent person who would’ve made a great governor. She would’ve been a million times better than LePage. (And two million times better than Cutler.) Not enough Mainers, though, were ready to elect a female governor, especially one with a South Carolinian accent, preferring a rich, white male plutocrat with a fat wallet, bad record and oversized ego.

The numbers don’t lie.

Trying to imagine a Maine influenced by eight years of Libby Mitchell’s leadership makes me wistful. And, obviously, the 2010 election was proof that no one in the future has built a time machine with the mission of righting wrongs.

A closing note on 2010: Cutler whined to anyone who would listen, complaining Mitchell was the real spoiler. And Cutler used the opportunity to denounce absentee voting, claiming that Mitchell’s early voters were dummies who’d have come to their senses and voted for him when election day rolled around if they hadn’t had the opportunity to vote early.

Okay, groomer.

By the way, in the 2010 race, Cutler spent over $1 million of his own cash and raised another $1.1 million from suckers… I mean supporters.

And, because he’s a moron, Cutler spent another million of his personal fortune four years later when he ran again for gov, and lost, for a second time. Once more, lots of well-meaning folks donated to his vision quest, to the tune of another $1 million in campaign contributions to help pay for his 2014 bid.

Cutler stabs Angus King, entire state of Maine, in the back

Here’s a simple math equation. Paul LePage + Eliot Cutler = Donald Trump.

I know lots of pundits like to pontificate how LePage is a proto-Trump and LePage winning the 2010 election was a predictor of things to come. That’s not 100 percent accurate. LePage came from poverty, never had a golden toilet and cut his teeth in biz management by being a tyrannical boss despised by most of the workforce at Marden’s Surplus and Salvage. Sure, he’s a troglodyte like Trump, but LePage is painfully aware he is never the smartest dude in any room. Loudest perhaps, and most abrasive, for sure, but he’s a dummy and he knows it.

Cutler, on the other hand, is a constant braggart-complainer hybrid. Like Trump, he likes to frequently portray himself as the gallant victim/outsider willing to enter the fray and play political hardball.

Also, like Trump, Cutler is much more likely to have owned, or leased, a golden toilet. And Cutler always believes he is the smartest in the room. Which becomes a problem when he’s in a room with Senator Angus King, because Angus also likes to believe he’s the smartest fella in the room. In the battle of egos, King wins though, because he’s a senator. And Cutler is a loser.

King was in the second year of his first term as senator when Cutler decided to run again for gov in 2014. This time, King told Cutler his blessing and endorsement came with a caveat. King didn’t want to help LePage win again. Or be blamed for supporting a spoiler, again. So if by October 1, the polls showed that Cutler wasn’t gonna be a contender, Cutler would agree to drop out and get behind Democrat Mike Michaud in exchange for King’s early support.

Michaud, like Libby Mitchell, was another competent and smart human who would’ve shined as Maine’s chief executive. Michaud losing the election is further proof that time traveling election fixers don’t exist.

Here’s another example of Cutler’s big ego and his problem with telling the truth. During the summer of 2014, Cutler claimed Maine Democrats had begged him to be their candidate and promised to “clear the field’ and ditch Michaud if Cutler said yes. Cutler also claimed Maine Republicans had begged him to join the GOP.

Leaders from both parties denied ever asking Cutler to be on their team. "That's Cutler's ego,” Democrat big-wig Severin Beliveau told the media. “We all have egos, but Cutler’s is in another world, in the ether somewhere.”

Around the same time, Cutler told cannabis activists that he had mixed feelings about legal weed. His number one concern? How reefer madness might impact young children.

Yikes.

At the start of October 2014, when the numbers showed Cutler polling around 10 percent, King Angus reminded his buddy of the pledge to quit. According to insiders, Cutler grabbed a steak knife and stabbed the junior senator from the great state of Maine in the back. Needless to say, Angus was pissed. Cutler didn’t care and told the King he was staying in the race until the very end.

Next, as many folks allege, Cutler made a deal with the devil. Which, I guess, technically, means it was an agreement between two devils.

Here’s the rumors from the trenches: Cutler and LePage forged their own backroom pact: If Cutler stayed in the race to play spoiler, LePage would take care of him after winning the election. And the deal was sealed with a rare display of PDA on October 8. In this video from Portland Chamber of Commerce 2014 gubernatorial debate, LePage and Cutler’s bromance came into full view, when the bros fist-bumped and hugged at the end of LePage’s closing statement. Which is unusual behavior for alleged rivals, even if one of them is a millionaire pervert hiding a secret cache of child rape videos.

In a dramatic late October surprise, gritting his teeth, Angus King publicly withdrew support for Cutler and endorsed Michaud. Insiders remember that King was angry and embarrassed that he had to do the dirty work instead of Cutler doing the promised falling-on-sword. Too little, too late, though. As the numbers below demonstrate, if Cutler had obeyed the boss, Michaud would’ve been elected the first openly gay governor in the United States. On that timeline, LePage, with no second term, would’ve moved to Florida, gotten drunk and then been eaten by an alligator.

Eliot Cutler, and Maine, were the big losers in the 2014 election.

Instead, LePage celebrated a narrow victory and remained in office, grinding axes, picking fights and returning favors. Two months into his second term, LePage (along with Sam Collins of UMaine’s board and younger bro of Maine’s senior Senator Susan Collins) supported Cutler being hired as chief executive officer of UMaine’s “Maine Center for Graduate Professional Studies,” which was a plan, in part, to facilitate the merger of a MBA program and a law degree. Cutler was paid $250,000 annually to do the job. (Luckily the money came from the Alfond Foundation, not tuition payments.) But Cutler’s giant ego could only last two years in academia before forcing his id into submitting a resignation letter in August of 2016.

Professor Susan Feiner doesn’t mince words.

All the while, during both gubernatorial runs and his time at UMaine, Cutler served on several boards, including as president of the board of the Lerner Foundation, a non-profit geared towards supporting efforts to encourage rural Maine kids to strive to attend college. Just another example of Cutler’s dedicated public service, I guess. In this case, Cutler was president of the unpaid board, which was made up of nine other Mainers, many Phds and child development specialists, including his wife. An unpaid board, that is, except for Cutler.

I’ve been able to examine the Lerner Foundation’s annual IRS 990 forms going back to 2009. Over the years, Cutler was paid at least $437,000 for serving as board president. His total earnings from 2009 until 2022 from the non-profit are probably closer to $550,000, but two years’ filings are missing data, so I can’t confirm a final amount.

Most years since 2010, though, Cutler was paid $50,000 annually for what is notated as “5 hours weekly” work as the board’s president. Not sure how Cutler’s experience as an environmental lawyer serves the non-profit’s mission of getting rural kids to go to college, though. Regardless, he was paid almost $200 per hour to serve as board prez, not for his astute legal services regarding airport runway expansions. Crazily, while receiving 50k annually from a non-profit trying to help kids, Cutler was amassing a giant collection of child sexual abuse material.

Here’s another number to make you cringe. In the decade from his first gubernatorial run until getting busted for CSAM, Cutler earned over a million bucks from the UMaine job and his position with the non-profit. And that’s not counting his income from investments and his roles on corporate boards.

Cutler held the position with the Lerner Foundation until resigning the day after his arrest. According to the 2022 IRS 990 form, he was only paid $12,000 that year, with his 3/22 resignation noted in a parenthetical. His wife resigned her unpaid seat on the board the following month.

Lerner Foundation officials were reportedly shocked by the news of their president’s arrest. They quickly issued a statement saying Cutler’s role didn’t put him in any contact with children served by the non-profit.

Call him Cutler, not Eliot

Rich white guys benefiting from their wealth and social status ain’t news, of course. However, you’d think that in regards to a crime of a sexual nature against children, the gloves should come off. For instance, many times in the police affidavits and court papers, Cutler is referred to as Eliot. Which is quite unusual, especially for such a high profile case.

Uhhh… Mr. Cutler???

And remember the aforementioned interruption of the police search to find the dude’s financials? I’m pretty sure that isn’t standard operating procedure when serving a warrant.

What about Cutler’s bail being a mere 50 grand? As Officer Amie Torrey of the Bar Harbor police noted in her affidavit, “I feel that because of Mr.Cutler’s high volume of very young child pornography and extreme wealth while facing a felony prosecution, he is a very high flight risk.”

I’d agree. If anyone in Maine’s elite was a flight risk, it’d be Cutler, a rich-white-exposed-collector of CSAM. What was stopping him from fleeing? Probably money troubles. More on that later.

Obviously I’m not a lawyer and don’t pretend to understand the inner workings of our judicial system. But this would’ve been the perfect time to throw the law book at someone to demonstrate how the rich and influential aren’t above punishment. After all, he had more than 80,000 instances of CSAM on his computers. Instead, in an unusual move, Cutler’s case never appeared before a grand jury because his lawyer and the new DA struck a deal. Cutler agreed to serve nine months of a four year sentence and then promised to behave himself.

According to his lawyer, Cutler was sorry for his sins. And, due to the heinous nature of his crimes, the aging millionaire was now a pariah to his high society friends. Besides, his lawyer argued, Cutler needed to be sentenced in accordance to the average sentence for crimes of his nature. The attorney included a list of comparative citations that proved other four count possessors of CSAM received similar sentences.

First of all, all the cited legal comparisons are moot. There is no similar case, at least in Maine. I might reconsider that opinion if someone shows me a millionaire arrested with tens of thousands of child sexual abuse content files on his electronics. Remember, though, Cutler was busted while UPLOADING the horrible video, which meant prosecutors could’ve easily proved to a jury that Cutler was disseminating the content.

Secondly, why was Cutler only charged with four counts of possession? He’d been amassing the CSAM for years. Should’ve been thousands of counts. If someone robbed a bank, let’s say, three times a year for eight consecutive years, they’d face, at least initially, 24 counts of bank robbery. But prosecutors and Cutler apologists say the four count plea was intended to keep court costs down and lead to a quick resolution with “Mr. Cutler.”

That’s just the wrong attitude. Did the DA really think Cutler would squander his family’s dwindling fortune on paying for his legal eagles to defend his “trove” of child rape videos? After all, the moron practically confessed to the cops when they were searching for his digital stashes. Seemed like this would’ve been a an open and shut case and a good opportunity to teach a lesson to poor pervs and rich pervs alike: there will be consequences for their digital deviancy.

Even more importantly, why wasn’t Cutler charged in federal court? With the amount of pre-pubescent child rape content on his devices, Cutler could’ve easily faced 10 to 20 years of federal hard time. A just and fierce sentence might have sent a message and, perhaps, restored some faith in the judiciary. And then Cutler would’ve died behind bars.

Welcome to Paradise Creek

For more evidence on how Cutler’s wealth influenced the outcome of his case, let’s take a close look at the millionaire’s stay at the “Paradise Creek Recovery Center” in Malta, Idaho. After all, his attorney Walt McKee argued that Cutler’s 28-days of therapy at the eight-bedroom house with views of grazing cattle and Idaho’s high mountain desert should prove to the court that Cutler wasn’t likely to re-offend. In his memo to the judge, McKee explained that Cutler’s time at the Paradise Creek Recovery Center, “was highly intensive and combined what would otherwise be a year and a half of intensive individual and group therapy into 28 days.”

The 8-bed facility doesn’t have neighbors, according to the promo video, except grazing cattle.

Before getting into the critique of the efficacy of this type of therapy, let’s get some fiscal facts out of the way. I haven’t been able to find pricing info for any so-called “28-day program” at Paradise Creek, but here are some fees for the recovery center’s “Sex Addiction and Pornography Addiction Treatment Programs.” A five-week stay at Paradise Creek, for instance, costs $26,875 for “a private room, all treatment modalities, meals and snacks included.” The six-week package (snacks also included) goes for $32,250. Cash only. No insurance accepted. Also, for an unknown reason, program attendees are required to bring an additional $5,ooo in cash, pre-paid credit card or certified check when they arrive at Paradise Creek.

Snacks are provided.

As you can see in the screenshot below from the Paradise Creek website, the center’s policy requires “anyone who is or may be involved in a legal process to enroll in the six-week treatment program.” Yet, according to Cutler’s lawyer, the former gubernatorial hopeful only spent 28 days at the Idaho joint, even though he was out-on-bail for possessing CSAM and the center’s own rules required a longer stay. For an unknown reason, Cutler’s therapeutic stay was two weeks shorter than what the recovery center actually requires for pervs of his ilk. His lawyer neglected to mention that apparent privilege, instead telling the court Cutler successfully completed the program.

Apparently, this rule didn’t apply to Cutler.

Below is the sample weekly schedule for Paradise Creek program attendees.

According to promo materials, in addition to group and one-on-one therapy, there is weekly art therapy, music therapy, as well as daily yoga and fitness programs. A nightly backyard marshmallow roast (weather permitting) is part of the package and includes the “opportunity to talk about principles of recovery in a less formal environment and, at the same time, enjoy some food that can easily be warmed or cooked over a campfire.”

Fridays, when the weather is nice, the program heads a half hour to the west to the “City of Rocks” state park for hiking, picnic lunch, and, if so desired, a therapy session done in a private spot in the great outdoors.

Obviously, the treatment at Paradise Creek is geared to monied folks like Cutler. While the people running the place seem to be compassionate (at least on video), how effective is the actual program? After all, in Cutler’s case, at the time of his stay in Idaho, he was a 76-year-old male with admitted “decades” of addiction to CSAM and a current hoard of over 80,000 images, in police custody, on his electronics. Pretty sure four weeks of talk therapy in the high desert ain’t gonna make a dent his brain-sickness. Unless, perhaps, the regimen included daily ayahuasca sessions coupled with round-the-clock behavior modification programming, reinforced with electro-shock therapy.

Alas, that’s not what’s offered at Paradise Creek, a sober facility that eschews punitive solutions. Instead, the place focuses on treating “the trauma that resulted in the problematic sexual behavior.” In addition to the variety of therapy modalities, there are frequent recitations of affirmations (the 12 Pillars, written by the center’s owner-psychiatrist) plus 12-step meetings and many hour-long blocks set aside for personal reflection.

Therapists at Paradise Creek also utilize guided meditations, some of which are akin to mild hypnotherapy. Plus the center’s director bragged their “arsenal of tools” includes EDMR, aka “Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing,” a relatively new therapy, allegedly treating trauma through moving (or rolling) eyes in a certain manner while the subject processes traumatic memories. Whether EDMR works is up for debate, especially for an entitled old man like Cutler whose neural pathways are carved thick and deep in his big, meaty brain.

The elephant in the room, of course, is how to gauge whether this sort of treatment has any impact on someone like Cutler. Remember, he’s been “addicted” for decades to criminal content that victimizes and scars children for life. Unfortunately, the assessment part of the therapeutic practice isn’t discussed in the Paradise Creek sales material. Instead, without empirical proof, the staff repeats and repeats the mantra claiming “28-days equal a year or a year and a half of therapy” which was then parroted by Cutler’s lawyer in court filings.

A quick aside: the 28 day program is a mainstay of most U.S. residential treatment programs for addictions to booze, drugs, sex and other bad stuff. That 28-day length-of-stay is rooted in what insurance companies traditionally had agreed to pay for. (Even though Paradise Creek doesn’t accept insurance.) There is no scientific proof that this arbitrary length of time, designed for billing purposes, is responsible for any lasting impact.

There are anecdotal stories of success from addiction treatment residential programs, but that usually involves focused aftercare and on-going support. However, especially in connection to eating disorders and “problematic sexual behavior” addictions, the success rate is relatively low. And current scientific studies of the 28-day residential programs’ impact on sex addictions suffer from a lack of data to accurately assess progress.

Let’s talk specifically about the assessment technique used by the team at Paradise Creek and Cutler’s therapists in Maine to support claims, in court, he’s not gonna re-offend. It’s called CPORT (C.P. Offender Risk Tool) which is “designed to predict any sexual recidivism for men convicted of [[CSAM]] offenses.”

Obviously using the C.P. term, like I mentioned earlier, shows from the get-go the assessment is lame and outdated, even though the tool has only been in use since 2015. But overlooking the ill-chosen nomenclature, the CPORT “test” also seems woefully inadequate in determining whether someone like Cutler will re-offend.

The assessment is based upon the following seven factors:

1. Age at time of investigation

2. Whether the offender had any prior criminal history

3. Any contact sexual offending

4. Any failure on conditional release

5. Any indicators of sexual interest in [[CSAM]] prepubescent or pubescent children

6. More boy than girl content in [[CSAM]]

7. More boy than girl content in other child depictions.

In August of 2023, however, a study called “Risk Assessment of C.P.-exclusive offenders” dissing CPORT was published in the American Psychological Association’s journal “Law and Human Behavior.” The study’s authors assert that all previous studies supporting the CPORT method “suffer from at least three significant limitations: extremely small samples, inordinate amounts of missing data, and potentially outdated samples.” The authors also go into detail on how the CPORT “has been misapplied in forensic settings and courtroom testimony.” In conclusion, according to the study’s authors, “it inappropriate to use the CPORT on [[CSAM]]-exclusive offenders in the United States at this time.”

Just to be clear, the assessment tool that Cutler’s defense team and therapist utilized in court to claim that he wouldn’t re-offend is considered “inappropriate” to use on sex offenders, especially in connection to courtroom testimony. Yikes.

Too late, I guess. Cutler has done his time and is now pursuing a life of leisure befitting a retired man of his wealth.

All this begs the question: is there any legitimate way to determine if treatment for offenders with “problematic sexual behavior” actually works?

I don’t know. In my forthcoming book Unholy Fathers (slated for 2025 publication, the result of a six-year investigation of the bad Catholic priests of Springfield, Massachusetts and an expansion of my Devils and Dirtbags podcast), I discuss the treatment center and therapeutic methods used on a serial rapist and Catholic priest who was pastor of my childhood church. I don’t want to go too much into the gory details here, but there are primitive “measuring” devices used in clinics and prisons to gauge the male sexual response when presented with visual stimuli, including CSAM. It’s a weird and creepy and under-discussed side of the treatment and assessment process, but a “penile plethysmograph” acts as a sort of lie detector in the form of a blood pressure “cuff” that measures blood flow to the penis while the brain looks at illicit material.

The plethysmograph is currently not used in Maine, where a traditional polygraph is the preferred device. (The polygraph, though, is also a suspect tool when used in trying to determine levels of criminal degeneracy.) In Idaho where Cutler underwent treatment, however, use of the plethysmograph is commonplace at some treatment centers and in prisons. Which means Cutler possibly could have undergone a plethysmographic assessment upon his arrival at Paradise Creek to establish a baseline reading. Then, at the end of the 28-days, he would undergo a re-assessment. But the court records don’t mention such a practice. Neither does the Paradise Creek website.

All of the court’s attention to his “treatment” and the validity of the CPORT in determining his punishment is just another example of the injustice of Cutler’s privilege. How do CSAM victims feel hearing the news of Cutler’s early release from a light sentence for what, in a better world, would be classified as a violent crime? My heart and brain aches thinking of those quiet ones, those sad ones, victimized by adults, forever tormented into silence, never to get justice, let alone retribution. Or revenge.

In terms of Cutler, I don’t give a damn about his alleged trauma, his feelings or any of his alleged shame. Due to the victimization of children, Cutler is a criminal of the worst type. His massive hoard of CSAM images, with a focus on violent pre-pubescent rape, clearly proves the depth and depravity of his actions. The actual impact of his evil, though, is unmeasurable in a tangible way. It’s safe to assert, though, for Cutler to fulfill his degenerate desires, he caused wave upon wave of victimization.

Yet, after a month in the high desert and a mere seven months in the county jail, he was released back into the world, and his Amen Farm, overlooking Blue Hill Bay. Sure, he’s disgraced and he ruined his family’s good name, but to me that’s still not enough of a price for him to pay.

I don’t have any answers, though chemical castration is a possibility. In some cases, chemical castration is used in order for offenders to avoid serious prison time. In Unholy Fathers, the serial child rapist I call “Father X” took a special hormonal combination to destroy his ability to become aroused, supposedly rendering him unable to re-offend. And while chemical castration is a good punitive measure, I’m not aware of how it’s viewed by the therapeutic side of the addiction industry.

I’m not sure anyone truly knows how to treat “addictions” that are also “crimes.” The possession of CSAM is a relatively brand new problem. Although compulsive cravings have been around as long as humankind, only modernity made CSAM widely available and easy to download. So whenever a monster hiding behind veneers of respectability (or anonymity) is exposed, the response needs to be severe. A harsh message needs to be sent to others with issues similar to Cutler’s to stop or seek help. If they don’t, they’re headed to prison for some hard time.

Not a charming child, says Cutler’s mom

By now, it’s clear that many people knew Cutler was not a nice guy long before his arrest in 2022. But, despite decades of backroom deals and back stabbings, he still had a handful of friends and a giant mansion on a hidden shore in Cape Elizabeth. Lots of Mainers, though, didn’t want anything to do with him. Especially those who viewed him responsible for facilitating LePage’s 8-year reign. Besides, Cutler was known for having money and wanting power. His charisma or charm was never the draw. Don’t take my word on this, though. Consider what his mother said about him.

“He was not a pretty or charming child,” Kay Cutler told a researcher for the Edmund Muskie Oral History Collection at Bates College. “Eliot was too big. He had acne. Too heavy.”

Cutler’s mother was being interviewed in 2002, because of her achievements in the field of social work and her efforts to improve access to social services for women and low income families. She was also being interviewed because of her son’s oft-repeated association with the sainted Ed Muskie, the Maine legend who served as governor, U.S. senator, Democratic nominee for vice president on Hubert Humphrey’s ticket and Secretary of State for the final year of Jimmy Carter’s presidency. Muskie is revered, rightly so, by most Mainers who came of age during the years of the Rumford native’s national prominence. To this day, those lucky enough to be in Muskie’s orbit still brag about their proximity to greatness.

Much has been made of Muskie’s influence on Cutler, who took an internship, then a job, with the senator after graduating from Harvard in 1968, where he mastered the use of a robo-pen and spent his days signing responses to constituent letters. Later, he held better staff jobs, but consider this misleading subhead from the Portland Press Herald’s 2014 profile of Cutler during his second try for the Blaine House. “The independent, a protege of Maine Sen. Edmund Muskie, has amassed a wealth of experience in business and law.”

Not true. Cutler was just an ordinary staffer, not a protégée. And it’s never mentioned that Muskie fired Cutler from the job sometime in late 1971. According to the Oral History Collection archive, during the run up to the ’72 election, George McGovern, the Democratic candidate challenging Richard Nixon, asked Muskie to be his running mate. When Muskie flew home to Maine to consider the offer, Cutler told insider info to CBS News reporter Bruce Morton, who revealed the details on Walter Cronkite’s evening program. Muskie, who eventually declined McGovern’s offer, was pissed. Even angrier was Muskie’s wife Jane, who never liked Cutler and considered his gossiping to the media, according to Cutler himself, “to be a real breach of discipline and loyalty.” So Muskie kicked him to the curb. Despite his dismissal, it doesn’t stop Cutler from bragging (and the media amplifying) that his relationship to Muskie was something special. Yikes. Talk about revisionism. If Ed Muskie fired you for blabbing secrets to the press, you don’t get to call yourself his protégée. If that ain’t a law, it should be.

Thanks to his three interviews with the researchers, there is more than ample proof of his giant ego. The transcripts are full of self-aggrandizing babble and myth making. Even though the interview topics were supposed to be George Mitchell and Ed Muskie, Cutler kept returning the focus to himself, almost like these conversations were for the “Eliot Cutler Oral History Archives.”

As if we need any more proof of Cutler’s privilege, ego and money, a quick perusal of news stories about him selling his 15,000 square foot mansion on five and a half acres in Cape Elizabeth should seal the deal. In 2017, around the same time he and the wife decided to downsize to the Amen Farm property in Brooklin, they listed the eight bedroom and eight bath mansion, complete with heated swimming pool, for a whopping $11 million.

Sothebys described the mansion as “built with architecturally distinguished museum quality appointments, this magnificent home has it all: 16+ generously proportioned rooms with elegant flow, breathtaking views, a private beach, a separate four bedroom guest house, pool, tennis court and much more - all on 600+ feet of bold Atlantic frontage.”

Unfortunately, for Cutler, there were no takers. Sure, the secret room and the two-story library was cool, but most home buyers seemed put off by the pair of grand pianos and almost $100,000 in annual property taxes. Over the next couple of years, Cutler dropped the price several times, first to $9.8 mil, then $8.79 million, then down to the bargain basement price of $7.5 million. That fire sale deal was enough, finally, to convince Jonathan Bush, a nephew of George H.W. Bush, to buy the place in January, 2021, after almost four years on the market.

Too bad Bush didn’t wait another year to make his offer. The price would’ve been much less, I’m sure, if the mansion was still for sale when Cutler was arrested in early 2022. In any case, that rich man’s house is now stained, due to Cutler’s crimes. Gotta wonder if that notoriety will impact resale value.

The mansion on the shore is another example of Cutler’s resemblance to Trump. Cutler acts wealthier than he actually is. Sure, compared to the rest of us, he’s loaded. But Cutler’s billable hours and power had been on the decline even before he was busted for CSAM. And while the big house sold for $7.5 million, turned out that Cutler didn’t actually even own the joint. He was just renting. Back in 2012, needing cash after spending over a million of his own money losing his first bid for gov, he sold the place to an LLC that was owned by he, his wife, their kids and “a couple of investors that kept them on as tenants,” according to reporting by the Associated Press at the time of the sale. That sounds like a rich man’s deal to me and more proof that the wealthy ain’t like the rest of us.

I guess, in a weird way, we should be grateful for Cutler’s loquaciousness with the Oral History interviewers and reporters. That’s how we learned of his privileged youth, his raccoon fur coat, and tales of studying at Deerfield Academy in western Massachusetts. Also, the Muskie Oral History archives is where we learn Cutler spent most of his undergrad at Harvard drunk. And how he blew off most of law school and still passed the bar. Or how he claims he avoided the draft for Vietnam with a 4f deferment, thanks to a greasy skin condition.

In the Muskie Oral History transcripts, we also learn that upon graduation in 1968, according to Cutler, he had to choose between a life of politics or a life of comedy. Again, we gotta consider the source, but he claims Muskie knew his family and the senator offered him an internship. The other option, comedy, meant teaming up with his Harvard classmates Henry Beard and Doug Kenney, who went on to launch National Lampoon magazine, which eventually became a film production company, a film franchise and more.

In many con artists’ personal creation myths, stories often have a grain of truth. That’s why the origin tales are often believable. And almost unbelievably, Cutler was indeed a member of the Harvard Lampoon, where Beard and Kenney were writer/editors. In fact, Cutler was part of the team responsible for the 1966 parody edition of Playboy published by the Lampoon, that according to legend, sold over a half million copies at newsstands nationwide. Cutler wasn’t writing jokes or satire, though. He was a hired hand for the sales department. Given the title “general manager," Cutler was responsible for selling ads for the parody issue. At least four Playboy parodies, btw, had been published by different college satirical publications before Harvard’s attempt, which happened to be the first to carry national ads. And the Harvard Lampoon’s Playboy parody was the first to become a huge financial success.

It’s kind of amazing, though, that Cutler was welcomed by the Lampoon. After all, he’s not a funny dude. Not a comedy writer. Or a cheeky hipster. He’s not known for his wit or satire or jokes. Plus his mom said he was never charming. And everyone complains about his giant ego. So how did a chunky kid with bad skin from Bangor get to hang out with the humorists responsible for some of the best satire and comedy ever produced in modern times?

Well, since you’ve made it this far, almost to the end of the pre-obituary of Eliot Cutler, you deserve an answer.

Call him Roscoe, not Oscar.

Thanks to hints and clues from the Muskie Oral History archives, I’ve been able to uncover some footage of Eliot Cutler, acting creepily, at an event on April 23, 1966 in front of the Lampoon Castle, an infamous local landmark near campus. His participation in that event won him membership in the undergrad humor magazine founded in Cambridge in 1876.

Let me set the stage: In 1966, the so-called jokesters at the Harvard Lampoon (and, as far as I can tell, not the aforementioned Beard and Kenney) thought it would be funny to mock actress Natalie Wood’s performance in The Great Race by bestowing on her the “Worst Actress Award,” according to a report in the Harvard Crimson student newspaper, “for this year, next year, and the following year thereby retiring the award, which now will bear Miss Wood's name when it is given to other actresses.”

First of all, these guys sound like real dicks. Secondly, Natalie Wood, who’d been acting in film since she was 8 years old and is a HUGE talent, turned the tables on the elitist funnymen. For the first time in the “competition’s 26-year history,” the winner of “worst actress” said she was going to show up in person to receive the award. Happily surprised, the Harvard boys decided to make a big deal about her visit and bestow upon her, ala the Oscars, a gold human-sized statuette that they nick-named “Roscoe” which would actually be a dude wearing golden long underwear and yellow swim cap.

Funny, right?

Anyways, all the pranksters needed was a chump to play the part of Roscoe. Preferably a schlub. With a gut. And not muscular or good looking at all. An ugly nebbish version of the famous Oscar statue.

And one of the Lampooners, named Dick Spencer (the eventual Maine lawmaker and lawyer, who represented Cutler back during the 2010 campaign) said, “I know a guy.” By now, I’m sure, you can see where this is going… but that’s how the drunkard and dumpy weird kid from Bangor was allowed membership in the Harvard Lampoon. According to Cutler’s own account, he was admitted only AFTER participating in the “gag.”

Amazingly, I was able to find footage from the Associated Press archives documenting the actual event. And you, dear reader, are among the very first to view, through the lens of what we know now, this rare footage of Cutler acting like a real creep toward the beloved Natalie Wood.

I wish there had been location sound with that footage. I bet, though, if that film could talk, it would say that Eliot Cutler was creepy and gross, especially when he kissed Natalie Wood on the neck. Also gross was the behavior of the obviously-feeling-entitled men who grabbed, groped, pawed and touched Natalie Wood, without consent.

I’ve watched the footage several times now, wincing throughout, but especially every time I get to this frame. Personally, I thought Natalie Wood was an awesome actress and the disrespect shown to her by these Harvard putzes is infuriating. The pained look on her face makes me mad.

Cringe. Natalie Wood (left), Eliot Cutler (in gold swim cap)

Sadly, this is how entitled white men have been treating women for eons. And word from insiders is that Cutler’s own boorish behavior continued into the workplace. If he found a woman attractive, she would find it unpleasant to have him as a boss.

However, Cutler seems proud of his involvement in the Harvard Lampoon event. And his portrayal of Roscoe was his first taste of the national spotlight. On the day after the “awards” ceremony, this photo (below) ran in newspapers from coast to coast.

I’ve never been a meme maker, but this whole incident is screaming for memeification.

Enough of the lulz. I don’t want to make light of the Cutler situation at all. Just trying to point out, that in retrospect, Cutler has always been an asshole.

I still have many questions, but several stick in my craw. What the fuck happened to Cutler? Nature versus nurture? He came from, by all accounts, a good family. Both parents were known for empathy and generosity. How did a life of privilege and the “best” schools and money, plus proximity to power, result in Cutler turning into an old man with a secret enormous hoard of unimaginably vile content stored on his electronics?

In a way, we’re lucky the dude was dumb enough to use his gmail to upload the CSAM to Dropbox. Otherwise, Cutler probably would’ve taken his disgusting secret to the grave. And if the sordid stash was discovered post-mortem, we never would have heard about his crimes. Instead, we would’ve been forced to endure glowing revisionist obits from the media and sterilized memories from the solons. His service to Maine, and his country, would’ve been honored and hyped. And he’d be lauded for his role as president of a foundation that helps kids in rural Maine go to college.

And no one would’ve known that Cutler should’ve died in prison.