A Hallowell man who stalked his ex-girlfriend and recorded her with a handheld camera while he hid in her home will serve 2 1/2 years in prison.
The Augusta woman who was the target of his surveillance said Jeffrey S. King’s actions during their on-again, off-again relationship of several years were the most horrific events of her life.
She said she has lost all sense of safety or privacy and has become paranoid, reclusive and on edge. She’s been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety so out of control that she has lost her job, her apartment “and everything I worked so hard to build up for myself and my son.”
King, 35, was sentenced Thursday at the Capital Judicial Center to 10 years in prison, with all but 30 months suspended, and six years probation. If he complies with the terms of his probation, which include having no contact with the victim, attending a certified batterer’s intervention program and domestic violence court, King will spend 30 months in prison. If he violates those terms, he could be sentenced up to the full 10 years.
“I was made to feel unsafe, not only in my own home, but everywhere I went,” the woman said through tears after King pleaded guilty to seven charges. “I always felt like someone was watching my every move. It took a huge toll on my mental health. Simple things, like taking out the trash, became terrifying.”
The woman, who the newspaper isn’t naming because its policy is not to identify victims of domestic abuse without their permission, said King’s actions surely traumatized her 4-year-old son, even if the boy didn’t understand what was going on.
Prosecutor Shannon Flaherty, an assistant district attorney in Kennebec County, said King broke into the woman’s apartment in April 2022, hid in her son’s playroom and recorded her while she was with another man, then sent her the recording, accusing her of being intimate with the man. King later admitted to the victim that he had entered her home and hid in the bedroom.
The woman reported to police she had found information on King’s phone regarding hidden cameras he put in her apartment, including one described as a light switch camera, according to an affidavit filed by Augusta police Detective Matthew Estes.
She said she didn’t know about it until King, while at her apartment, stated, “You’re going to hate me after this,” and removed a light switch in her apartment that was a hidden camera. He told her he had replaced her light switch with the camera, and it had been there for months. She said she found a photograph on his phone of him holding a hidden camera smoke detector next to the smoke detector from her apartment. She also showed police a screenshot of an email to King, confirming the purchase of a smoke detector camera.
The woman also told police that in May 2023 she discovered King had hidden audio recording devices in her bedroom after he played the audio to her.
One night in November 2023, a friend was staying the night and King, who had a key to the apartment but did not live there, walked into her bedroom, prompting her friend to run out of the apartment, with King behind him in pursuit. She said King pushed the man down the stairs and assaulted him, but the man declined to press charges. King returned to her apartment, went through the man’s wallet and took her laptop and cellphone, although he later returned those items.
King, who appeared Thursday before Chief District Judge Brent Davis, said little during the hearing, politely answering the judge’s questions.
King was indicted May 21 on charges of domestic violence stalking, burglary, two counts of criminal trespass, and three counts of violation of privacy. He pleaded guilty to all those charges Thursday.
He was sentenced to five years in prison, with all but 30 months suspended, and three years or probation on the most serious charge, the Class B burglary charge. He was also sentenced to another five years, all of it suspended, and three years more for probation, to be served consecutively, on the domestic violence stalking charge.
King’s attorney, Kurt Peterson, said King had very little criminal history, with only a violation of a protection order, involving the same victim, on his record.
“I’m confident Jeff will be successful on probation and will engage in the counseling the court ordered today, and confident the court will not see Mr. King again,” Peterson said.
The incidents took place between 2021 and 2023.
