ALFRED — The Kennebunk man who triggered Maine’s first Amber Alert is going to prison for six years.

Gary Traynham, 39, was convicted in March of aggravated assault and criminal restraint. He was sentenced Monday in York County Superior Court. In addition to the prison time, Traynham was sentenced to five years of probation.

In November 2009, authorities issued the state’s first Amber Alert after Traynham abducted his 2-year-old daughter, Hailey, from her mother’s Sanford apartment. Traynham and Hailey’s mother had recently broken up, and she had filed court papers seeking custody of Hailey five days earlier.

The alerts are typically used in abductions that don’t involve a parent, but authorities were concerned because Traynham had violently assaulted Hailey’s mother and cellphone activity indicated he was in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire.

Traynham had also been charged with gross sexual assault in the violent encounter with his ex-girlfriend. The jury had deadlocked on that charge as well as a burglary charge.

The Amber Alert included descriptions of Traynham, his daughter and his pickup truck. It was broadcast on television and radio and posted to Internet sites and message boards on the Maine Turnpike.

A deer hunter came upon Traynham’s truck on the side of a logging road in Milton, N.H. The hunter, Michael Grant of Milton, recognized the truck from those descriptions. The two men talked for about an hour before they headed to a nearby house, where police were called and Traynham was arrested without incident.

 


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