AUGUSTA – A jury Friday cleared Albe Lagasse of two counts of aggravated assault in the April stabbing of two men outside a bar in Waterville.

Lagasse, 45, of Bangor, spent three days on trial this week in Kennebec County Superior Court.

He is being held in the Kennebec County jail on a warrant from Massachusetts charging him with three counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, one count of assault with a dangerous weapon, and one count of indecent assault and battery on a person 14 or older, according to District Attorney Maeghan Maloney.

“He’ll be going from here to Massachusetts,” Maloney said Friday.

At his trial, Assistant District Attorney David Spencer maintained that Lagasse had used a knife — which he allegedly showed to the bartender prior to leaving The Chez Paree bar on Water Street — to cut the two men on April 26, 2012.

One of the men, Carl A. Hunter, who is serving a seven-year prison sentence for a pharmacy robbery, refused to testify.

The other man, Michael Dicent, testified Thursday that Lagasse had cut him.

But Lagasse’s attorney, Zachary Brandmeir, said the timeline described by Dicent didn’t match that of security footage, and Dicent also admitted in a police interview that he had a knife that was never found.

Waterville police followed a trail of blood from the scene outside the bar to an apartment on nearby Sherwin Street, where they found Hunter with chest wounds, including one that doctors said punctured his lung. Dicent was found with a deep cut on his elbow and a number of wounds to his groin area. The men were treated at area hospitals.

 

Betty Adams can be contacted at 621-5631 or at:

badams@centralmaine.com

 

Copy the Story Link