The attorney who filed a recently dismissed professional misconduct complaint against Kennebec County District Attorney Maeghan Maloney (D) has landed a plush job working for Attorney General Aaron Frey (D).
Maloney was hit with the complaint just weeks before she would run against incumbent Attorney General Frey for the Democrat-controlled legislature’s nomination to serve as AG.
Attorney Zachary Paakkonen filed the complaint on behalf of the Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar just weeks before Maloney and Frey would compete for support among Democratic lawmakers.
[RELATED: Maine Bar Dismisses Misconduct Complaint Against Kennebec DA Maeghan Maloney…]
The Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar is an independent agency established by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court in 1978 to regulate the conduct of lawyers admitted to practice in Maine.
The complaint, regardless of its merits, was eagerly covered in the central Maine newspapers that are reliably favorable toward the Mills Administration.
The result was a figurative black-eye for Maloney as she sought to convince her fellow Democrats that she could restore a sense of ethics and propriety to the AG’s Office.
Frey’s re-election was in question at the time, in no small part because his licentiousness was aired in the media after it was revealed that he had for months carried on a sexual relationship with a married subordinate employee, Assistant Attorney General Ariel R. Piers-Gamble, then Ariel Gannon.
The affair was exposed by the family of Piers-Gamble’s ex-husband. But the news of Frey’s unfaithfulness came as less of a surprise to Frey’s girlfriend of twelve years, whose house he’d lived in for most of that time.
[RELATED: 8-Month Long “Error in Judgement” – Maine AG Aaron Frey Caught in Sex Scandal…]
Though Frey made at least one emotional attempt to patch things up with his longtime girl friend and sometimes benefactor, the pair are now permanently estranged.
News of Frey’s in-office sexual assignations prompted calls for some kind of an inquiry to at least create the appearance that Democrats were concerned with the perception of impropriety that can result when such a power differential exists in a romantic relationship.
[RELATED: AG Aaron Frey’s Longtime Girlfriend Accuses Him of Misleading Comments on Sex Scandal…]
A subsequent investigation commissioned by Democratic lawmakers found that AG Frey did not violate any office policies against having sex with subordinate employees — but only because no such policies existed at the time.
Piers-Gamble remains an Assistant Attorney General in Frey’s office and, according to state payroll records, received compensation worth $153,263.25 in 2024 — a healthy increase from her 2022 pre-affair annual compensation of $108,928.09.
Paakkonen’s petition, submitted on behalf of the Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar, was filed on Oct. 3, 2024 — just over one month before the Democrat-controlled legislature voted to once again nominate Frey as AG on Dec. 5, 2024.
The complaint stemmed from a phone call Maloney placed to a sexual assault victims advocacy group after learning about wild allegations of sexual assault posted by a central Maine woman to Facebook.
That complaint was dismissed on April 22 with prejudice, meaning it can’t be brought again against Maloney.
Although Maloney’s attorney in the matter, Joe Jabar, did not directly accuse Paakkonen and Frey of engaging in a quid-pro-quo of dirty politics to smear his client and help Frey cling to power, his statement to media did point toward political motivations behind the complaint.
“Now that the election is over, all charges have been dropped with prejudice and without a hearing,” Jabar said. “We have maintained from the beginning that DA Maloney acted in compliance with the law.”
Much as it pays well to work under Frey — depending on the position, of course — it also pays to submit the ultimately bogus professional misconduct complaint that tars his reputable and credible challenger for the AG position.
Paakkonen, who’d previously worked for Frey as an Assistant Attorney General from Dec. 31, 2018 to Oct. 20, 2023, retreated from the competitive private sector to another gig on Frey’s team.
Whatever Paakkonen did during his brief stint in the private sector must have improved the value of his legal acumen in the eyes of the Attorney General.
Chief Deputy Attorney General Christopher C. Taub told the Maine Wire via email that Paakkonen’s new AAG role will earn him a base salary of $112,382.40, which will work out to a total comp package worth more than $133k — a decent increase over his 2023 base pay rate of $103,608.90.
