Two federal agents who allegedly violated a Maine man’s constitutional rights by threatening him for observing their work during a January immigration enforcement surge were identified for the first time in a new court filing on Wednesday.
Robert Peck, a 67-year-old South Portland resident, is suing the agents and the U.S. government for violating his First and Fourth amendment rights after he said he was observing the agents from a safe distance as they drove through Scarborough. According to the lawsuit, filed on behalf of Peck by law firm Johnson, Webbert & Beard in June, two masked agents threatened to pull Peck out of his car and said they would arrest him if he continued to follow them, citing a law that prevents citizens from interfering with law enforcement.
Peck’s attorney, David Webbert, has argued Peck was exercising his constitutional right to watch federal agents doing their work in public.
In a new court filing filed on Sept. 23, the federal agents are identified as Nicholas Lapointe and Christopher Semler. The two deportation officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement were previously identified in the lawsuit as John Doe 1 and 2. Neither agent provided their name to Peck during the Jan. 22 incident.
The Maine Monitor reached out to the U.S. Department of Justice attorneys representing the government in the case, Connor John Hackert and Joseph Gonzalez, on Wednesday and was referred to the department’s Office of Public Affairs, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In an August court filing, lawyers for the federal government agreed that the names of the agents could be publicly disclosed, but other information including internal law enforcement shift and staffing details, investigative activities and techniques, and the personal addresses and phone numbers of law enforcement officers would remain confidential.
Peck’s lawsuit was the first filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act for immigration agents’ conduct during “Operation Catch of the Day,” the name the Trump administration gave to a weeklong enforcement action in Maine. Federal officials said at the time that they were aiming to detain 1,400 immigrants living in Maine, but the operation ultimately resulted in roughly 200 people being detained — only 11 of whom had criminal records.
In a number of those cases, federal agents were not wearing standard uniforms and used masks to obscure their faces — a pattern that has drawn scrutiny during President Donald Trump’s second term as lawmakers and advocates have pushed for more accountability within ICE.
Peck is not the only one pursuing legal action under the Federal Tort Claims Act. In late July, the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine took the first step toward filing federal lawsuits on behalf of two people and one family “who suffered abuse at the hands of federal agents in Maine,” according to a press release, seeking damages of more than $5 million.
