High court considers discipline for Hancock County probate judge

A state committee that governs the conduct of judges is seeking to have Hancock County’s elected probate judge removed from office.

Maine’s highest court on Tuesday heard oral arguments from an attorney with the Committee on Judicial Conduct on whether to discipline William Blaisdell IV for failing to pay child-support to his ex-wife and not filing three years’ worth of tax returns, according to the Portland Press Herald.

Blaisdell’s messy personal life and legal troubles spilled into public view in March after he was found in contempt of court in Waldo County for failing to pay nearly $50,000 in child support to his ex-wife.

In the contempt of court order, Judge Patricia Worth noted that Blaisdell had failed to comply with previous child support orders dating to 2019. She also wrote that at a prior hearing, Blaisdell testified “that despite being a practicing Maine attorney and being the current sitting Hancock County Probate Judge, [he] has not filed his federal or state income taxes for 2022, 2021, 2020 and possibly for 2019.”

Blaisdell avoided having to spend 90 days in jail when he came up with the overdue child support before a March 25 deadline set by Worth.

Blaisdell is facing possible discipline from two separate angles — one that focuses on his role as a licensed attorney, the other on his part-time role as an elected judge. While the Maine Supreme Judicial Court could agree to discipline Blaisdell, it cannot remove him from elected office. Only legislative officials can do that, according to the Press Herald.

Staff attorneys for the Maine Overseers of the Bar, which governs the conduct of attorneys, filed a petition in April with the board to suspend Blaisdell from practicing law. The board has not released any decision about whether to suspend Blaisdell’s law license.

Last week, Blaisdell was suspended from taking more court-appointed cases as a defense attorney, according to the director of the Maine Commission on Public Defense Services, which oversees the list of attorneys eligible to take on that work, the Press Herald reported.

Blaisdell, who divorced his ex-wife in 2019, has spent the past decade as Hancock County’s probate judge, a role that oversees matters such as adoption, guardianship, inheritance and name changes. Blaisdell also has been working as a criminal defense attorney when not presiding over probate court matters.

After first being elected as Hancock County’s probate judge in 2014, he narrowly won reelection in 2018 and then was reelected without opposition in 2022. He faces reelection in 2026.