SCARBOROUGH

Company proposes to build new Route 1 shopping plaza

The Dolphin Cos. announced plans Wednesday to build a new shopping center next to the Dolphin Marketplace on Route 1.

The 61,500-square-foot Shops at Oak Hill would be anchored by a 40,000-square-foot grocery store. The plaza also would include a restaurant and retail building, according to a news release from The Dolphin Cos.

Jay Chace, assistant town planner for Scarborough, said the company has yet to start the formal review process for its development plans.

FARMINGTON

Part of manhole cover hits windshield, injuring driver

A Farmington woman suffered minor injuries when part of a manhole cover flew into her windshield Wednesday morning.

Sierra McGraw, 26, was driving south on Route 2 when her vehicle was hit by half of a manhole cover, said Officer Ryan Rosie of the Farmington Police Department.

Rosie said police think a tractor-trailer was driving north on Route 2 when the truck drove over the manhole cover, splitting it and causing it to fly into the support beam between her windshield and driver-side window.

Rosie said the manhole was recently worked on, so it’s possible the cover was not securely fitted into the manhole and that caused it to break when hit by the tractor-trailer.

The driver of the tractor-trailer did not stop after the accident and Rosie said the driver probably did not know what had happened.

McGraw was treated at the accident scene by NorthStar ambulance crews but was not taken to the hospital, Rosie said. He said she appeared to have only suffered superficial scratches.

PORTLAND

South Berwick man, 23, sentenced in fatal overdose

A South Berwick man who supplied drugs to a man who fatally overdosed in his apartment in 2010 was sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court to serve 71 months in prison.

Shawn Verrill, 23, had pleaded guilty March 20 to distribution of buprenorphine (Suboxone) resulting in the death.

The man who died, Miles Malone, 20, of Atkinson, N.H., went to Verrill’s apartment in South Berwick on Oct. 12, 2010, and died after obtaining two Suboxone pills from Verrill and taking them while he was there, according to court records.

When police arrived at the apartment the next day, Verrill initially denied that he and Malone had taken the drugs and claimed that Malone had fallen asleep after playing video games. But an autopsy showed that Malone died of an overdose, the court records show.

Police who searched Verrill’s apartment found multiple bottles of pills hidden in a concrete block used as a television stand. A lab analysis showed that Verrill’s DNA matched the DNA from the cap of the Suboxone bottle, according to court records.

Judge D. Brock Hornby sentenced Verrill to serve three years of supervised release after his prison term.

AUBURN

No bail for suspect accused of killing alleged informant

A Greene man who is charged with the slaying of a man he believed was a police informant has been ordered held without bail.

Nathan Morton appeared in court on Tuesday.

Morton is charged with murder, conspiracy to commit murder and hindering apprehension or prosecution in connection with the killing of Romeo Parent in April.

The Sun Journal reported that Morton’s lawyer said his client should be allowed to live at his parents’ home pending trial because he is not a flight risk.

The prosecutor countered that Morton was an admitted drug dealer who would resume that activity if released.

Authorities said Morton drove Parent and another man to a secluded area, where the other man stabbed and strangled Parent because he had told to police about a burglary.

BANGOR

Bank robbery suspect, 66, arrested within one hour

Police arrested a 66-year-old man in connection with a bank robbery at Bangor Savings Bank on Wednesday morning.

Police were called to the bank at 3 State St., where bank officials described the robbery suspect as an older man with gray hair and a gray beard, possibly carrying a yellow bag.

Within an hour, Bangor detectives arrested Percy Cartwright of Bangor at the Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center, police said.

All but $20 of the stolen money — which was less than $1,000 — was recovered, police said.

The mental health facility is a few miles from the bank and police are looking into whether Cartwright may have used public transportation as his getaway vehicle, police said.

Cartwright was taken to the Penobscot County Jail, charged with robbery. No one was injured.

 

Mechanic gets seven years in deadly crowbar beating

An auto mechanic who was convicted in the fatal crowbar beating of a neighbor is going to prison for seven years.

Peter Robinson of Bradford was sentenced Wednesday at the Penobscot Judicial Center. WABI-TV said the judge imposed a 14-year sentence but suspended half of it. He’s also sentenced to four years of probation.

Robinson was convicted of manslaughter in the death of Donald Trask, 71, in November 2011.

There was bad blood between Robinson and Trask and his family members before an altercation turned deadly. Robinson testified that he thought Trask’s cellphone holder was a gun holster before he grabbed the crowbar from the older man and beat him with it.

 

Sentencing delay granted for former basketball star

The sentencing of a former Maine college basketball star on child pornography charges has been postponed.

Dana Wilson of Brewer was scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday, but the hearing was delayed until Aug. 20 because his psychologist had a scheduling conflict and was unable to appear in court.

Wilson’s lawyer said it’s important that the psychologist testify because Wilson was “dealing with a lot of stressful personal events” in his life at the time of the offense, including the breakup of his marriage.

Wilson, 62, was found guilty in May of possessing child porn.

Wilson averaged an NCAA Division III best nearly 35 points a game during his senior year at Husson College in 1974. He was inducted into the Maine Sports Hall of Fame last year, but his induction has been revoked.

 

Study of border crossing fee won’t be funded, Collins says

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins said the possibility of charging border crossing fees for people to enter the U.S. by land from Canada or Mexico is all but dead.

The Maine senator said Wednesday that the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee has approved the department’s fiscal year 2014 funding bill with language that expressly prohibits funding any study looking into the feasibility and cost of instituting a border crossing fee.

Collins, who grew up near the Canadian border in northern Maine, said border community residents routinely go back and forth between countries to work, dine, shop, visit family or attend church.

Collins, a Republican, and other members of Congress from border states strongly objected when the Department of Homeland Security, in its 2014 budget proposal, asked permission to study a fee at land border crossings.

EDGECOMB

Two men seriously injured in alcohol-related ATV crash

Two men were hospitalized, one in critical condition, after the all-terrain vehicle they were riding flipped early Wednesday morning on Old County Road.

Christopher Dighton, 23, and Drew Wallace, 23, both of Edgecomb, were seriously injured when the ATV they were riding rolled over in the roadway at 12:30 a.m., according to the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office. Neither man was wearing a helmet.

Dighton was flown by LifeFlight helicopter to Maine Medical Center in Portland. Wallace was driven there by ambulance, the release said.

Dighton is in critical condition and Wallace is in satisfactory condition, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Deputies said the ATV may have been driven without headlights and that alcohol contributed to the crash. They are not certain who was driving at the time of the crash, the news release said.