Ann Cook, a Maine public school teacher who in 2022 was recorded going on a bizarre racially-charged political rant in front of a middle school student, has now allegedly been caught on video absconding with a Trump campaign sign from a Yarmouth intersection, according to video obtained by the Maine Wire.

The video footage of the incident, captured on a game camera placed near the intersection by the sign owner, appears to show a woman removing the sign from the public right-of-way and bringing it to her vehicle before driving away.

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The owner of the sign was able to obtain the license plate number of the woman’s vehicle, and to identify the woman as Ann Cook, a resource room teacher at Gray-New Gloucester Middle School, a source familiar with the matter told the Maine Wire.

Under Maine law, stealing, defacing or disturbing a sign lawfully placed on a public right-of-way is a civil violation, for which a fine of up to $250 can be imposed.

Despite the owner of the Trump sign reporting the incident to the Yarmouth Police Department, police reportedly chose not to fine Cook due to it being her first offense with no prior record, and simply told Cook to return the sign to the intersection, the source said.

In a statement to Maine Wire on Thursday, Yarmouth Police Chief Daniel Gallant confirmed that while an initial decision was made by an officer not to resort to imposing a fine, a civil summons will be issued against the suspect.

“There was a report received regarding a political sign, and initially a decision was made by an officer to try to resolve the issue without legal action,” Chief Gallant said.

“The owner of the sign indicated that charges were preferred and after reviewing the incident, a civil summons (Title 23.1917.B) has already been prepared, and will be served on the suspect,” Gallant said.

Gallant said that police will be able to release the identity of the suspect after the summons has been formally served.

In October 2022, the Maine Wire published an audio recording taken in April of that year, which features Ann Cook telling a middle school student that his Trump-supporting parents are uneducated victims of propaganda.

“Your father and stepfather are just caught up in the propaganda,” Cook tells the middle schooler in the recording. “They believe the lies. And that’s the whole point of lying is that people believe it just ‘cause you say it.”

Cook said that when she sees someone wearing a Trump MAGA hat, she thinks to herself, “that’s somebody who needs to be educated.”

In her anti-Trump rant Cook also lauded the prosecutorial career of Vice President — and now Democratic nominee for president in 2024 — Kamala Harris, while claiming that law enforcement in the U.S. do not jail white people for certain crime.

“Throughout her career, she’s been guided by the words she spoke the first time she stood up in court, Kamala Harris, for the people,” Cook told the student. “She specialized in prosecuting child sexual assault cases, putting pedophiles behind bars,” she tells the middle schoolers. “Do you think that’s a good thing to do? I do too.”

“She created a groundbreaking program to program Instead of putting men in jail – usually its men, usually its men of color, because we don’t put white people in jail for these things – she came up with a program to help them earn a high school diploma and get a job rather than put them in jail,” Cook said.

“Do you think that’s a good thing?,” she said. “I think that’s a good thing.”

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