March 29, 2024
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Former teacher faces trial on assault, OUI

ELLSWORTH – A former Bar Harbor teacher who has received a $25,000 settlement from the local school system and has been offered a $15,000 settlement by Hancock County’s insurer is scheduled to go on trial this week in Hancock County Superior Court.

Geoffrey Wood, 37, is facing charges of assault, operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicants, violating a protection order and violating conditions of release, according to court documents.

Hancock County Assistant District Attorney Mary Kellett, the prosecutor in Wood’s criminal trial, said that the original charge against Wood stemmed from an alleged assault against his wife on May 27, 2001. The charges of violating a protective order stem from the assault charge, she said.

Jury selection in Wood’s trial on the assault charge is scheduled to take place Wednesday, Kellett said. The other charges against Wood will be tried separately, most likely at a later date, she said. Kellett declined further comment about Wood’s case.

In January, Wood was offered $15,000 to settle a claim against the Hancock County Jail, the staff of which Wood claims conducted an illegal strip search on him when he was booked into the facility in May and June 2001.

Wood may end up in court again as a plaintiff, according to Malcolm Ulmer of the Maine County Commissioners Association. Ulmer, the claims manager for the association’s self-funded risk management pool, said that Wood’s attorney, Sandra Collier of Ellsworth, has rejected the $15,000 offer and broke off negotiations.

“They’ve indicated they are going through with their lawsuit,” Ulmer said Monday. “I don’t think it’s been filed yet.” There was no such lawsuit on file Monday afternoon in Hancock County Superior Court, according to employees at the court clerk’s office.

Collier could not be reached Monday afternoon for comment about Wood’s criminal trial and his claim against the county jail.

The $400,000 Wood is seeking from the county’s insurer is the maximum allowed under state law for a tort claim, the kind of claim Wood has filed, according to Ulmer. The $15,000 offer, Ulmer has said, was an attempt to avoid the costs of litigation, which are likely to be higher.

Wood was paid $25,000 last December by the Mount Desert Island school system after he resigned as an eighth-grade math and social studies teacher at the Conners Emerson School in Bar Harbor.

Howard Colter, Union 98 superintendent, said Monday that Wood was asked to resign after he was given a leave of absence last summer. Colter declined to reveal what prompted Wood’s departure from the school system, but said that Wood worked in the school system for only one year, as a social studies teacher.

“Ultimately, we worked out an agreement that was acceptable to all parties,” Colter said.

Colter said Wood was given a letter listing the dates of his employment with Union 98 when he resigned.

“I believe we verbally agreed to that,” Colter said. He stressed that the letter was not a recommendation and was not written with the intent to help Wood find employment elsewhere.

Wood was charged last summer with operating a motor vehicle under the influence of intoxicants after he demolished his car on the loop road in Acadia National Park, according to park rangers.

They said Wood was intoxicated when they found him lying under a tree at 3 a.m. Aug. 7, about 300 feet from his 1996 Subaru. The car went off the road and rolled near Jordan Pond, about 45 minutes before Wood was found, they said.


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