Maine State Police executed search warrants Wednesday morning at two properties owned by prominent lawyer, politician and former gubernatorial candidate Eliot R. Cutler.

Eliot Cutler Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

Shannon Moss, spokesperson for the Maine Department of Public Safety, confirmed in an email that state police executed the warrants at 84 Pine St. in Portland and 523 Naskeag Point Road in Brooklin in Hancock County. Both are owned by Cutler and his wife, Melanie, according to tax records in Portland and Brooklin.

Moss said she could only confirm the addresses targeted by police, and not who lives in the homes or the reason for the search warrants. No charges had been filed by police as of Wednesday.

“I can confirm that a two-month investigation has led the Maine State Police to execute search warrants at two separate locations Wednesday morning, March 23,” Moss said. “The residences are located at 84 Pine St. in Portland and 523 Naskeag Point Road in Brooklin. Given this is an active and ongoing investigation we are unable to provide any details at this time.”

Portland’s tax records show that Cutler and his wife own 84 Pine St., a single-family home in the city’s West End. The couple also owns a farm and 47 acres on Naskeag Point Road. The Brooklin property’s assessed value – it is known locally as Amen Farm – is more than $766,000 and Cutler pays $5,800 a year in taxes. Amen Farm, which was built in 1850, sits on top of a hill overlooking Blue Hill Bay.

The Press Herald reached the 75-year-old Cutler by phone Wednesday afternoon and asked him about the police search of his Brooklin property, but Cutler refused to answer questions.

“I have no comment,” Cutler said. When pressed further, he replied, “I’ve told you I have no comment.”

Cutler did not respond to a follow-up voice mail message seeking more details once it had been confirmed that he and his wife own both properties.

Cutler has been a prominent figure in Maine politics for years.

In 2010, he ran for governor as an independent candidate, losing narrowly to Republican Paul LePage. Democrat Libby Mitchell finished third. In 2014, Cutler again ran as an independent against incumbent LePage and Democrat Mike Michaud. Once again, LePage prevailed.

Cutler grew up in Bangor, the oldest son of a prominent doctor and community-minded mother and attended Harvard College, and Georgetown University School of Law.

He served as a legislative assistant to Democratic U.S. Sen. Edmund Muskie, and later served as natural resources and energy policy adviser to President Jimmy Carter.

Cutler was a founding partner of the law firm Cutler and Stanfield, which in the 1990s was considered the second-largest environmental law firm in the nation.

Cutler and his wife lived in Cape Elizabeth for many years before selling their 15,445 square foot oceanfront home for $7.6 million, at the time the highest sum for a single-family dwelling in Cumberland County since Maine Listings, a subsidiary of the Maine Association of Realtors, began keeping records in 1996.

The couple sold their Cape Elizabeth mansion at 1172 Shore Road to Jonathan S. Bush, a relative of former Presidents George W. and George H.W. Bush.

“It was time,” Cutler told the Press Herald at the time of the sale. “This place is huge, and much too big for the two of us.”