PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — A former Presque Isle referee who sent nude photos of himself to teenage girls on Facebook faces less prison time after the Maine Supreme Judicial Court this month set aside some of his convictions.
The justices of the state’s highest court ruled in part that digital photos transmitted over the internet were “legally insufficient” to constitute “exposure” under the state’s indecent conduct law.
Andrew Legassie, 25, of Presque Isle, was convicted last year of multiple sex offenses for using Facebook Messenger — an application for sending private messages on Facebook — to send sexually explicit photos of himself to five females who were between the ages of 14 and 17. The incidents allegedly occurred in late 2013 and early 2014.
The state charged Legassie in July 2014, accusing him of trying to have the girls send him nude photos of themselves and of trying to solicit sex from them. According to court documents, at least one of the girls sent him nude photos of herself, but there was no evidence that he ever physically met with any of the alleged victims.
Following a bench trial in February 2016, Aroostook County Superior Court Justice E. Allen Hunter found Legassie guilty of three counts of attempted sexual exploitation of a minor, one count of sexual exploitation of a minor, one count of attempted sexual abuse of a minor and five counts of indecent conduct. The defendant was found not guilty on 19 other charges and was sentenced to 17 months in prison.
In arguments before the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, Alan Harding, the Presque Isle attorney who represented Legassie, argued that his client was not guilty of indecent conduct because Legassie did not expose his genitals in the physical presence of any victim, which he said would be required for a conviction under the statute as written.
Harding contended that proof that Legassie transmitted a digital photograph of himself to any victim via Facebook was legally insufficient to support the conviction. The Law Court agreed.
Supreme Court Justice Thomas Humphrey, who wrote the majority ruling released on Oct. 5, noted that “we simply conclude, considering the ambiguous legislative history … that as reprehensible as Legassie’s behavior was, it cannot be stretched to meet the facts of this case.
“The legislative history contains no affirmative indication that the Legislature contemplated or intended that the indecent conduct statute could be used to prosecute an individual for distributing a nude photograph,” Humphrey wrote.
During the trial, according to court records, two of the victims also testified from memory about the messages they received from Legassie via Facebook, while the three other victims produced copies of the conversations.
Harding argued that testimony about the messages violated the state’s “best evidence rule,” which customarily requires attorneys to present copies or screenshots of these messages for use in court.
The supreme court justices agreed that the “victims’ testimony, recounted in their recollections nearly two years after Legassie sent and the victims received and read the messages, was clearly not the best evidence to prove their content.”
Because of other variations in the cases, the justices threw out Legassie’s conviction on one of the attempted sexual exploitation of a minor charges and ordered the Aroostook County Superior Court to re-examine the verdict on a second count.
The supreme court sent part of the case back to the lower court to have the judge decide whether Legassie should be resentenced on some of the charges based on evidence other than the victims’ memories of the Facebook messages.
The ruling essentially vacated the longest portion of Legassie’s sentence, which was four years in prison with all but nine months and one day suspended, on the sexual exploitation of a minor charge.
Harding said Monday that the Maine Legislature has addressed “sexting” with other cases in the past, but he is not sure if any new legislation will be introduced as a result of this case. He said that Legassie is free on bail pending his appeal, and living under “very strict” bail conditions.
The county’s case was argued by Assistant District Attorney James Mitchell, who could not be reached for comment.
