The final installment in a five-part series examining separate licensing complaints involving Maine DHHS/OCFS employees looks at records concerning Amy Cilley, including repeated child-safety reports, alleged retaliation, DHHS no-trespass actions and statements to law enforcement.

Published: August 11, 2026
Part 5 of a Five-Part Investigative Series
By The Maine Mirror

This is the fifth and final installment in a five-part series examining separate professional licensing complaints involving five individuals working within Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services and Office of Child and Family Services (OCFS).

The five complaints are scheduled to come before the licensing board on Friday.

Part 5 examines the complaint involving Amy Cilley, an administrator with Maine OCFS, and the documentary record submitted in support of it.

The records raise several distinct questions: how OCFS responded to repeated reports concerning child safety; why requests for a safety plan allegedly went unanswered; the circumstances surrounding DHHS no-trespass actions; concerns that agency scrutiny shifted after a parent intensified his advocacy; and statements allegedly made to law enforcement that Michaels says conflict with police body-camera footage and accounts from other DHHS employees.

The complaint does not itself establish that Cilley committed professional misconduct or violated the law. Those are matters for the appropriate authorities to determine. The documentary record does, however, provide a dated trail that allows many of the underlying allegations to be independently examined.

Police Body-Camera Evidence Raises Questions About Statements to Law Enforcement

One of the most significant allegations concerns a March 11, 2025 incident at the Biddeford DHHS office and statements Cilley allegedly made to a responding police officer.

In a July 15, 2025 email, Michaels formally asked Cilley to explain statements he says she made about his behavior and mental state. According to the email, Cilley described Michaels to the responding officer as “out of touch with reality,” questioned his disability status and portrayed him as a threat or disruption.

The significance of the allegation is not simply that Michaels disputes Cilley’s characterization.

According to his email, other DHHS employees reportedly gave the responding officer substantially different descriptions of the encounter.

Michaels wrote that the front-desk receptionist told the officer he “was not being a problem” and reportedly said she would also be upset if treated the way Michaels had been treated.

The email further states that another employee described Michaels to the officer as a “tattooed guy who seemed harmless.”

Michaels says these conversations were captured on police body-camera footage and conflict with Cilley’s characterization of his behavior.

(Email documenting alleged conflict between OCFS statements and police body-camera evidence at Biddeford DHHS. July 15, 2025 email challenging statements allegedly made by Maine OCFS administrator Amy Cilley to police after a March 11, 2025 incident at Biddeford DHHS, including references to body-camera footage and DHHS employees describing Ryan Michaels as not causing a problem and seemingly harmless.)

This creates an independently verifiable question: What does the complete police body-camera footage show, and how do Cilley’s statements compare with the accounts of DHHS employees who interacted directly with Michaels?

Complaint Questions Maine DHHS No-Trespass Order and Facebook Post

The licensing complaint also describes separate no-trespass actions involving Maine DHHS facilities in Sanford and Biddeford.

Among the additional evidence Michaels says he possesses is correspondence from Cilley concerning a December 3, 2024 no-trespass action at the Sanford DHHS office.

According to the complaint, the restriction was justified in part by allegations that Michaels had made threats through a Facebook post.

Michaels alleges that Cilley acknowledged she had not personally seen the Facebook post being used to characterize his conduct.

The complaint further alleges that information concerning the post had already circulated among OCFS personnel.

(Complaint excerpt concerning Sanford and Biddeford DHHS no-trespass orders. Excerpt from a professional licensing complaint alleging that Maine OCFS administrator Amy Cilley relied on claims about a Facebook post she had not personally seen when justifying a December 3, 2024 no-trespass action at the Sanford DHHS office.)

This particular allegation requires verification through the original correspondence and DHHS records because the displayed excerpt is a summary contained within Michaels’ complaint rather than the underlying Cilley communication.

If the underlying records support the allegation, however, they raise a significant public-accountability question: What evidence and review does Maine DHHS require before restricting a member of the public from entering a state office?

Emails Document Repeated Requests for a Child-Safety Plan

The dispute documented in the complaint began well before the police encounter and later no-trespass controversy.

An April 11, 2024 email to Cilley states that more than 72 hours had passed since Michaels reported what he characterized as serious concerns regarding his children’s safety and well-being.

Michaels wrote that he had received neither acknowledgment nor resolution.

He asked why his numerous requests for a safety plan had been disregarded, why his questions and concerns were being overlooked, what resources OCFS had offered his children, how many investigations had occurred and what proactive measures were being implemented to protect them.

(April 2024 email requesting a child-safety plan from Maine OCFS. April 11, 2024 email to Maine OCFS administrator Amy Cilley stating that more than 72 hours had passed without acknowledgment of reported child-safety concerns and asking why repeated requests for a safety plan had been disregarded.)

The email does not establish whether the underlying allegations concerning the children’s other parent were substantiated. Nor does it establish that OCFS personnel took no action outside the correspondence.

What it does establish is that specific questions about child safety and requests for an OCFS safety plan were being made in writing at the time.

That creates another independently answerable question: What actions did OCFS take after receiving those reports and requests?

Retaliation Concerns Were Documented Before the Later DHHS Controversies

Another email shows that concerns about OCFS’s treatment of Michaels were being raised long before the March 2025 Biddeford incident.

On April 3, 2024, Michaels emailed Cilley expressing concern that OCFS’s investigative attention toward him appeared to increase after he became more vocal about his children’s safety.

Michaels wrote:

“I find it disconcerting that it was only after I began advocating more assertively for my children’s safety… that I found myself under scrutiny by your team.”

He said the shift followed three previous investigations during which, according to him, his role and actions had not been questioned.

The same email states that four investigations had occurred over approximately a year and again says that requests for a safety plan had gone unanswered.

(April 3, 2024 email raising concerns about OCFS scrutiny following child-safety advocacy. Email from Ryan Michaels to Maine OCFS administrator Amy Cilley stating that he believed increased scrutiny from the agency began after he became more assertive in advocating for his children’s safety and noting repeated requests for a safety plan.)

The timing does not by itself prove retaliation. An agency’s investigative focus can legitimately change when new information emerges.

But the date of the email is significant because it establishes that Michaels was documenting his concern about possible retaliatory scrutiny contemporaneously in April 2024, rather than first making the allegation after the later disputes involving DHHS and law enforcement.

Maine OCFS Director Bobbi Johnson Acknowledged the Concerns

The documentary trail also shows that Michaels’ complaints reached senior OCFS leadership.

On April 14, 2024, then-OCFS Director Bobbi Johnson responded directly to Michaels.

Johnson wrote:

“Mr. Michaels – I am confirming receipt of your email and will follow up with the district staff regarding your concerns.”

The email copied multiple state employees, including Cilley.

(Maine OCFS Director Bobbi Johnson acknowledges concerns in April 2024 email. April 14, 2024 email from Maine Office of Child and Family Services Director Bobbi Johnson confirming receipt of Ryan Michaels’ concerns and stating that she would follow up with district staff.)

This establishes that the concerns had reached the director of Maine’s Office of Child and Family Services and that Johnson said she would follow up.

It consequently creates an important question for the agency:

What investigation, review or other action occurred after the OCFS director promised to follow up?

What Maine DHHS and OCFS Records Could Establish

Each event described in the complaint could have additional context.

An OCFS employee’s characterization of an encounter may have been based on information not reflected in these emails. A DHHS no-trespass decision may have relied on records not included in the complaint. Child-welfare employees may have taken actions that were never communicated to Michaels. An investigation may also legitimately change direction as additional information emerges.

Those possibilities are precisely why the underlying government records matter.

Taken together, the documents establish a chronology worthy of independent examination.

Michaels reported concerns about his children’s welfare and repeatedly requested a safety plan. He documented what he viewed as a lack of response. He raised concerns that OCFS’s investigative attention shifted toward him after his advocacy intensified. He escalated those concerns to the director of OCFS and received written acknowledgment. He subsequently faced restrictions involving DHHS facilities. And he later alleged that an OCFS administrator’s statements to police conflicted with accounts captured from other DHHS employees.

The central question isn’t whether the public should simply accept either side’s account.

It is what Maine’s own records show happened.

Questions Maine DHHS and OCFS Should Answer

The documentary record leaves several questions that can be addressed through agency records and official responses:

What did OCFS do after receiving the April 2024 child-safety reports and repeated requests for a safety plan?

What follow-up occurred after OCFS Director Bobbi Johnson acknowledged the concerns?

What evidence supported the Sanford and Biddeford DHHS no-trespass actions?

What does the complete March 11, 2025 police body-camera footage show?

And how does the agency explain any differences between statements attributed to Cilley and the accounts reportedly provided to police by other DHHS employees?

Answers to those questions could help determine whether the events documented in this complaint reflect misunderstandings, government actions whose supporting context is absent from the available correspondence, individual professional failures or broader issues within Maine’s child-welfare system.

As the fifth and final installment of this series, this complaint also leaves a larger question behind: when multiple complaints involving separate employees within the same public agency reach professional oversight, are they best understood solely as individual disputes—or does the combined documentary record warrant examination of the system itself?

Public accountability depends on people being willing to examine the records, ask difficult questions and follow the evidence wherever it leads.

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