Biddeford School Committee member Dennis Anglea has been indicted on multiple assault charges by a York County grand jury.
The charges handed down against Anglea, 58, on Thursday include felony charges for aggravated assault and attempted gross sexual assault. He also is charged with a misdemeanor for domestic violence assault.
Anglea was first elected to the school committee in 2013. His current term expires at the end of next year, according to the city’s website.
“The accusations that are against me are false, and I’m letting my lawyer and the system take care of it,” Anglea said Friday when reached by phone. “I expect to continue serving. I have been charged. In the United States, you are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.”
Anglea’s lawyer was not immediately available for comment. Biddeford Superintendent Jeremy Ray and Mayor Alan Casavant, who serves as the ex officio chairperson of the school committee, had not responded to messages left Friday afternoon.
The Journal Tribune obtained a police report outlining some of the evidence gathered by Biddeford police after an encounter in April between Anglea and an unnamed 47-year-old woman whom he described as a friend.
The woman appeared at the Biddeford police station April 24 and told police she was assaulted several days before by Anglea, with whom she had a sexual relationship in the past, the Journal Tribune reported.
She said they saw each other downtown and he bought her drinks and took her to a building he oversaw as property manager. She said he “snapped” and took her clothes off, grabbed her wrists, punched her and smashed her head on the floor.
Anglea denied that he was violent when interviewed by police.
He said he responded to an alarm call at a mill building and afterward ran into the woman. He said she was drunk and asked him for drinks and money. He bought her drinks and took her into the building so she wouldn’t drink in public. He also denied having sex with the woman, telling police that evidence found in the building was related to a sexual encounter the day after with a different woman, the Journal Tribune reported.
Megan Doyle can be contacted at 791-6327 or at:
mdoyle@pressherald.com
Twitter: megan_e_doyle
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
