William B. Blaisdell IV Suspended

Hancock County Probate Judge William B. Blaisdell IV repeatedly defied his own court's authority — falling more than $33,000 behind on child support payments to his ex-wife and failing to file three years of federal income taxes (2020, 2021, and 2022). A Waldo County court found him in contempt over the child support debt; Blaisdell avoided a 90-day jail sentence only by paying his ex-wife $50,000, covering the arrears plus her attorney fees and interest.

Maine's Supreme Judicial Court suspended Blaisdell from judicial office for one year, with all but four months of that suspension stayed, conditioned on him filing the overdue tax returns. The Court did not mince words about why: "disobedience of a court order by anyone is serious, but contempt of a court order by a sitting judge cannot be tolerated," it wrote, calling his conduct "egregious and deserving of significant sanction."

Blaisdell's problems didn't end there. He was later the subject of an arrest warrant over continued child-support non-compliance and turned himself in; a subsequent contempt finding led Maine's high court to separately suspend his law license for three years.

A probate judge presides over exactly the kind of family and financial disputes he was personally violating — his own court orders, his own tax obligations. A judge who won't follow the rules he's paid to enforce on everyone else isn't a difficult case to make; Maine's own Supreme Judicial Court made it in its own words.