Court names ICE officers sued by Maine man Robert Peck

MS NOW posted a YouTube video titled “These ICE officers were anonymous. Until one man sued.” The channel’s own description says a court filing has now named two ICE officers once listed only as John Does after a Maine man sued them for threatening him with arrest while he documented their work.

That man is Robert Peck, 67, a retired mental health counselor from South Portland, according to Spectrum News and The Maine Monitor. Spectrum News reported that Peck shot cellphone video on Jan. 22, 2026, after following ICE agents in Scarborough. The officers pulled over on Milliken Road. Spectrum News said the recording captures two masked agents in tactical gear telling Peck to stop following them or they would “pull you back out and arrest you,” Peck stopped observing after the threat, Eyes On Ice reported, because he feared being pulled from the car. Neither officer gave a name that day, the court papers state.

Peck filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine on Aug. 3, 2026, docket No. 2:26-cv-00293-JAW, naming the men as John Doe 1 and John Doe 2. The complaint invoked the Maine Civil Rights Act and was later amended to add Federal Tort Claims Act claims. Peck had already filed an FTCA notice of claim with DHS and ICE on Jan. 30, 2026. His lawyers, including Shelby Leighton of Johnson, Webbert & Beardin June, moved to compel disclosure of the officers’ identities. A Sept. 23 court filing identified them as ICE Deportation Officers Nicholas Ryan Lapointe and Christopher John Semler. Leighton told Spectrum News, “We needed their identities to be able to serve them with the lawsuit and allow the case against them to go forward.”

Leighton also said, “It’s scary to think that you can just be out driving and get stopped by federal agents that can intimidate you like that.” She added that she found the encounter “very threatening” and would have been “terrified” in Peck’s position. In an earlier August filing, government lawyers agreed the names could be released but asked the court to keep sealed internal shift and staffing records, investigative techniques and the officers’ personal contact information. Department of Justice attorneys Connor John Hackert and Joseph Gonzalez were listed on the filings; The Maine Monitor said the department’s public-affairs office did not immediately respond when reached.

The encounter came during what DHS and ICE called Operation Catch of the Day. The Maine Monitor reported that federal officials first said the weeklong Maine sweep aimed to detain about 1,400 people; roughly 200 were ultimately detained, and only 11 had criminal records. Peck’s action is the first FTCA case tied to that operation, according to the same outlet. The ACLU of Maine said in late July it was preparing separate federal suits for two people and one family, seeking more than $5 million in damages. An ICE spokesperson told Spectrum News that “the vast majority” of agents do their work “with professionalism and honor” and that “ICE takes all allegations of employee misconduct seriously.” DHS told MS NOW that ICE “stresses integrity and ethical behavior.”