STANDISH

Eleven summer homes along Sebago Lake burglarized

The Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office is investigating burglaries at 11 summer homes on Sebago Lake.

The break-ins were discovered Wednesday after a delivery person noticed that a home on Smooth Ledge Road had been broken into.

Deputies are trying to contact the owners of the homes, which are in the surrounding neighborhood.
Anyone with information should contact Detective John Fournier at 774-1444, extension 2173.

MONROE

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Four members of one family charged with growing pot

Maine State Police have arrested a family on charges of growing marijuana.

Police said James and Darlene Ford of Monroe, both 55, and their two adult sons, 34-year-old James Ford of Dixmont and 31-year-old Paul Ford of Swanville, were charged after 300 marijuana plants and 10 pounds of processed pot, together worth about $800,000, were seized Tuesday from the parents’ home in Monroe.

Maine Drug Enforcement Agency Supervisor James Pease said agents found the plants in the garage, which he estimated had about $80,000 worth of growing equipment.

He said the elder James Ford was convicted in 2002 of growing marijuana inside his home in Weymouth, Mass. His house was later seized.

HOULTON

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Bad behavior on buses leads to testing of video cameras

A district in eastern Maine plans to test out video cameras on buses in the wake of recent troubles on the sometimes-long trips to school.

SAD 29 board members decided to take advantage of an offer by a camera company to install equipment on one or two school buses to see if they help reduce problems for students and drivers.

Superintendent Mike Hammer said the idea came up during the last school year after problems with behavior on long bus rides and negative interaction between younger and older riders. Students sometimes spend an hour or more on the bus.

SAD 29 serves about 1,300 students from Houlton, Hammond, Littleton and Monticello.

PORTLAND

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Police charge woman after altercation at encampment

A 46-year-old woman was charged with disorderly conduct Tuesday after a confrontation with another camper at the Occupy Maine encampment at Lincoln Park.

Donna Summers, who has no fixed address, was charged after an officer witnessed an altercation between her and a man at about 6:30 p.m. The verbal altercation became physical, with the woman hitting the man as he walked away, police said.

Summers apparently did not want the man to put his tent close to hers, police said. No one was injured.

SACO

Man thrown into windshield when mini-bike, car collide

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Saco police are investigating a crash that sent a man riding a motorized mini-bike to the hospital with serious injuries Tuesday.

Alex Paul, 21 of Biddeford was riding on Willey Road, which is a dead end, when he collided head-on with a 1996 Jetta driven by Brandon Williams, 24, of Biddeford. The collision, at 6:49 p.m., threw Paul into the windshield. He was taken to Maine Medical Center with serious but non-life-threatening injuries, police said.

Williams was given a blood-alcohol test as is required in such cases, but neither alcohol nor excessive speed appear to be factors in the case, police said.

An accident reconstruction will attempt to determine the speed and location of the vehicles at the time of the crash, police said.

AUGUSTA

Bill calls for missing child to be reported within 24 hours

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Maine is joining the list of states that will consider a law requiring prompt reporting of missing children, in response to the public outrage in the Casey Anthony case.

Rep. Kimberly Olson has submitted a “Caylee’s Law” bill that was inspired by the case of 2-year-old Caylee Anthony, whose mother didn’t report her missing in Florida for about a month. The mom, Casey Anthony, was acquitted of murder last summer in Caylee’s death.

Olson, a Republican from Phippsburg, said the bill would make it a crime punishable by up to five years in prison for a parent or legal guardian to not report a missing child within 24 hours. It will be considered by lawmakers when the Legislature convenes in January.

At least 15 other states have proposed similar laws.

LIMINGTON

Police say drunk teen tried to flee by diving into river

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A 17-year-old may face charges after police said he dove into the Little Ossippee River here in an effort to escape sheriff’s deputies Tuesday.

A York County deputy spotted a suspicious car parked along Sand Pond Road at 6:15 p.m. and discovered a group of young people drinking. One young man, who appeared intoxicated, ran rather than provide identification and jumped into the river near Edgecomb’s Bridge, the sheriff’s office said.

The deputy did not see the boy resurface and feared he had been swept downriver in the swift current. The deputy called for help from other deputies, state police troopers, wardens and rescue workers from Limington, Limerick and Standish.

They searched for an hour before a neighbor said a boy had turned up in her driveway, soaking wet, and said he had fallen in. She gave him a ride to a relative’s house in Standish, not realizing police were looking for him.

Police were able to identify the suspect and said they anticipate bringing charges.

KITTERY

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Man wearing ski mask robs clothing store at knifepoint

Kittery police are searching for a man who robbed a clothing store at knifepoint Tuesday, ordering employees to the back of the store then emptying the register.

A man wearing a black ski mask entered the Osh-Kosh Outlet store on Route 1 at 6 p.m. and announced he was robbing the store.

Witnesses described the man as about 5 feet 8 inches tall with a medium build and blue eyes that had wrinkles at the corners. He was wearing a black fleece jacket with ripped jeans.

The man demanded the location of the safe and ordered a clerk to open the registers before leaving with cash. There were no injuries.

Anyone with information is asked to call police at (207) 439-1638.

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MOUNT DESERT

Billionaire told to remove shed due to lack of a permit

A billionaire who recently built a $24 million waterfront mansion in Mount Desert has been ordered by the town to remove a small shed from the property because it was not approved by the Planning Board.

Code Enforcement Officer Kim Keene sent a certified letter to Mitchell P. Rales in October informing him that a 20-foot-by-10-foot shed located in the staff parking area had not been permitted. The letter said Rales was subject to fines if the shed remained. The penalty could be up to $2,500 per day.

Rales is co-founder of Danaher Corp. and is worth an estimated $3 billion, according to Forbes magazine. Efforts to reach him were unsuccessful.

MOSCOW

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Auction of former radar site attracts two bidders so far

There have been only two bids so far for nearly 1,500 acres and several large buildings in Moscow that were once home to the Air Force’s Over-the-Horizon-Backscatter radar system.

As of late Tuesday, one bidder had offered $110,000 in the online auction held on the U.S. General Services Administration’s website, and a second bidder made an offer of $120,000.
The bidders are not named.

The auction for the property, which once held equipment that scanned from Greenland to Cuba for approaching Soviet missiles and planes, does not have an end date. The land used to house a radar system that was developed in the 1970s and shut down in the 1990s.

Town officials want the property sold because it has been tax-exempt.


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