AUGUSTA -- A judge has refused to ban a former teacher from receiving letters and other items from the student with whom he had an illicit sexual relationship.

Justice Nancy Mills denied a request from the probation officer for Christopher Dumaine, 40, to keep Dumaine from receiving gifts, correspondence and other items from the girl named as the victim in his sexual-assault convictions.

At a recent hearing in Kennebec County Superior Court, Dumaine's psychologist testified that those items were beneficial to Dumaine's treatment.

But Dumaine's probation officer sought to have items sent from the girl marked "Return to Sender," or else surrendered to the probation officer to be returned through the state's victim-services program.

In a letter to the court, Dumaine's attorney, Walter McKee, said the original probation conditions did not impose any conditions on one-way communication.

Dumaine, of Readfield, pleaded guilty in Kennebec County Superior Court on Nov. 13, 2007, to two counts each of gross sexual assault and unlawful sexual contact and one count of violating a condition of release. He was sentenced to four years in jail, with all but nine months suspended and, three years probation.

He is now free on probation. Conditions of probation ban him from being at his former workplace, Monmouth Academy, and from contact with the victim.

The girl, who was 16 and one of Dumaine's students at Monmouth Academy at the time the relationship began, wrote to the judge at the time of Dumaine's sentencing.

She requested the ability "to send him the letters I have written and write him every day, or drawings; even if he cannot respond. . . . It would ease much of my own stress and help bring relief about the given situation."

Dumaine is barred from unsupervised contact with girls under 18.

Mills also denied a request from the state to have the probation officer approve the people who supervise that contact.

Dumaine lost his certification to teach in Maine as of Nov. 20, 2007.

Betty Adams -- 621-5631

badams@centralmaine.com