Man arrested during MDI protest against Leonard will receive $62.5K in compensation

A Bar Harbor man who sued police after he was arrested at a protest outside conservative rights activist Leonard Leo’s Mount Desert Island home received $62,500 in a settlement with the officers who handcuffed him and killed him put in prison.

Eli Durand-McDonnell was arrested as he and others protested in Northeast Harbor in July 2022 against Leo’s influence in leading the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down federal protections that legalized abortion.

The members of the Mount Desert Police Department who made the arrest were Lt. Kevin Edgecomb and Officer Nathan Formby

The settlement was released this week by the city of Mount Desert after the Bangor Daily News requested a copy under Maine’s Freedom of Access Act.

Aside from the dollar amount paid to Durand-McDonnell through the city’s insurer, the four-page settlement includes standard provisions such as releasing Mount Desert and its representatives from further legal claims and prohibiting any party in the suit from publicly disparaging the other.

Mount Desert City Manager Durlin Lunt and Kasia Park, the attorney who represented Edgecomb and Formby, declined to comment Friday on the settlement.

Durand-McDonnell, his attorney Matthew Morgan and representatives for Leo did not immediately respond to separate requests for comment Friday.

When arrested on July 31, 2022, Durand-McDonnell, 25, was charged with disorderly conduct, but Hancock County District Attorney Robert Granger later dismissed the misdemeanor charge.

Granger called the case a low priority for his office and said prosecutors should “tread very carefully” when considering whether protected political speech crosses the line into a breach of the peace.

Two months later, Durand-McDonnell sued Edgecomb and Formby in federal court, saying they violated his right to free speech and arrested him under false pretenses.

On the day of his arrest, Durand-McDonnell was accused of verbally abusing Leo and his family as they walked along Main Street in Northeast Harbor. Later that afternoon, Durand-McDonnell joined protests outside Leo’s home against his job in an effort to get conservative justices appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Such protests intensified in the summer after the Supreme Court overturned Roe. v. Calf.

After Leo complained to police about being yelled at by Durand-McDonnell, officers located him and arrested him on a charge of disorderly conduct. A criminal complaint accused him of knowingly assaulting Leo, shouting obscenities and making offensive gestures toward his family. Leo later said that Durand-McDonnell had insulted his 11-year-old daughter, but the protester said his comments were directed at Leo.

Durand-McDonnell was released from the Hancock County Jail later that evening on bond on the condition that he have no contact with Leo. However, the conservative activist’s family was not mentioned in the bail conditions.

Morgan later filed a motion to dismiss the charges on the grounds that they violated his client’s right to peaceful protest, arguing that the allegations were insufficient and that he should never have been arrested.

The scrutiny and criticism of Leo was a national problem.

According to the Washington Post, he came under fire last year for making secret payments of nearly $100,000 to Ginni Thomas, the wife of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, for alleged consulting work.

Previously, Leo made headlines when Politico reported that he used his work with the Federalist Society – a nonprofit whose tax status prohibits it from political advocacy – to make a $1.6 billion donation to his ” “Dark Money Network”, which contributed to becoming conservative. Anti-abortion judge appointed to Supreme Court.

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