Stockton Springs Police officer Christopher Hast was arrested November 1st for sexually assaulting a 15 year old girl several times since April. He now faces 12 counts of Class B gross sexual assault. The allegations were made after Hast sent his victim a message via Snapchat saying that he wanted to kill her mother so that the two of them could be together. Officers were able to recover the Snapchat message despite prior claims by the platform that messages are permanently deleted. The Stockton Springs Police Department (SSPD) has placed Hast on unpaid administrative leave pending the outcome of the case and an internal investigation.
According to media reports, Hast first sexually assaulted his victim in March or April of this year. About two months later he began having sex with her on a weekly basis. Hast also sent the girl sexually explicit images of himself and asked her to sent him nudes of herself, but the media has not said if she did. Judging by the lack of child porn related charges we believe that the girl did not send him any nudes. Judging by Hast's booking photo the poor girl must have been terrified at just the sight of his naked body and we can't imagine how anyone could consent to sex with him. Eventually he considered himself to be her boyfriend and suggested killing her mother so that they could be together forever. That was the last straw that motivated her to go to the police.
We are not sure which statutory scheme prosecutors are using to charge Hast, but every clause of Maine's gross sexual assault statute which constitutes a class B offense seems to require some form of force, coercion, or a power imbalance rendering consent legally impossible. The class B clauses read as follows:
2. A person is guilty of gross sexual assault if that person engages in a sexual act with another person and:
A. The actor has substantially impaired the other person's power to appraise or control the other person's sexual acts by furnishing, as defined in section 1101, subsection 18, paragraph A, administering or employing drugs, intoxicants or other similar means. Violation of this paragraph is a Class B crime;
B. The actor compels or induces the other person to engage in the sexual act by any threat. Violation of this paragraph is a Class B crime;
C. The other person suffers from mental disability that is reasonably apparent or known to the actor, and which in fact renders the other person substantially incapable of appraising the nature of the contact involved or of understanding that the person has the right to deny or withdraw consent. Violation of this paragraph is a Class B crime;
D. The other person is unconscious or otherwise physically incapable of resisting and has not consented to the sexual act. Violation of this paragraph is a Class B crime;
E. The other person, not the actor's spouse, is under official supervision as a probationer, a parolee, a sex offender on supervised release, a prisoner on supervised community confinement status or a juvenile on community reintegration status or is detained in a hospital, prison or other institution, and the actor has supervisory or disciplinary authority over the other person. Violation of this paragraph is a Class B crime;
H. The other person has not in fact attained the age of 18 years and the actor is a parent, stepparent, foster parent, guardian or other similar person responsible for the long-term care and welfare of that other person. Violation of this paragraph is a Class B crime;
See https://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/statutes/17-a/title17-Asec253.html
N. The actor is a law enforcement officer acting in performance of official duties and the other person, not the actor's spouse, is under arrest, in custody or being interrogated or temporarily detained, including during a traffic stop or questioning pursuant to an investigation of a crime. For the purposes of this paragraph, "law enforcement officer" has the same meaning as in Title 25, section 2801A, subsection 5. Violation of this paragraph is a Class B crime.
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Noticeably missing from the class B clauses and the Maine gross sexual assault statute as a whole are situations in which a grown man has a 15 year old girlfriend. That scenario is covered by a different statute which prohibits sexual abuse of minors (https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/17-A/title17-Asec254.html). Under that statue having sex with a 14-15 year old when you're more that 5 years older is only a class D offense. The fact that Hast is charged with only class B offenses and no class D offenses indicates that this was not a consensual relationship.
On November 3rd Judge John Martin set Hast's bail at just $10,000. He also ordered that Hast remain on house arrest and wear a GPS monitor as conditions of his release.
Hast has been with the SSPD since 2015. He also worked as a part time officer for Thomaston from 2015 to 2018. Before that he worked as a court officer at the Knox County Courthouse.
According to public records, Christopher Carl Hast is a 32 year old resident of Rockland, Maine. His last known home address is 7 Oliver Woods North. We are exempting Hast from our usual courtesy of censoring home addresses of law enforcement personnel because he is charged with a sex crime against a minor. We feel that posting his address is in the interest of public safety so that parents can know where not to let their daughters go. We ask that nobody use this information for any unlawful purpose.