AUGUSTA — A former Riverview Psychiatric Center patient is accused of stealing drugs and furnishing them to a fellow outpatient.
Each of the two men previously was found not criminally responsible for murdering a parent in separate cases. Both remain in the custody of the commissioner of the Department of Health and Human Services.
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The alleged drug dealing involving Kristian McKay and William Bruce is outlined in Kennebec County Superior Court documents.
Riverview is the state forensic hospital that treats people with severe and persistent mental illness, including those charged with crimes and those found not criminally responsible for crimes because of mental illness.
So far, the allegation against McKay has cost him all of his privileges, including being allowed to live in a supervised Augusta apartment and having up to 12 hours unsupervised in the community a day and extensive time with his wife and children.
Maine Supreme Court Associate Justice Donald Alexander ordered that McKay remain in Riverview and that he “be tested randomly for illegal and unauthorized substances.” The judge also prohibited him from unsupervised, off-grounds activities.
Alexander issued the order last week in Kennebec County Superior Court following a court hearing Jan. 16. The order notes that McKay “has a long history of substance abuse, dating back to his early teens.”
The order came in response to the state’s motion to revoke McKay’s privileges just four months after McKay was granted up to 30 hours a week unsupervised in the community to work, volunteer or go to class. He also was authorized to own a car and drive it within 25 miles of his home.
McKay, 29, formerly of Standish, was found not criminally responsible for the March 2007 stabbing death of his father.
The state is charging McKay with stealing the prescription drugs Xanax, which is used to treat anxiety disorders, and Ritalin, which is used to treat attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder. The drugs allegedly belonged to his wife. McKay furnished them to Bruce, who in turn gave him “psilocybin” mushrooms, according to the prosecutor, Assistant Attorney General Laura Yustak Smith.
McKay gave the pills away without asking for money, according to a letter from Susan Fasulo, the mental health caseworker supervisor for the Riverview Outpatient Services Team responsible for supervising and treating McKay. The letter was sent to the court, to Smith and to the State Forensic Service, which evaluates people for the court.
It also said McKay reported that in mid-December he bought two nip-sized liquor bottles of Jagermeister and drank them in his apartment. His most recent treatment release order prohibits him from having alcohol.
Smith cited the letter in her motion seeking revocation of McKay’s privileges and an order vacating modified release treatment plans.
It was unclear whether the attorney general’s office had requested a hearing in Bruce’s case.
McKay was initially confined to his apartment and then hospitalized at Riverview on Jan. 13.
Citing the letter from Fasulo, Smith said McKay “admitted to several separate occasions of obtaining and using alcohol, prescription drugs and illegal drugs in December 2014.”
The letter says that in addition to supplying the prescription drugs to Bruce, who is not referred to by name, McKay “admitted obtaining marijuana from a different individual in the custody of the commissioner, and using it.”
In her motion to the court, Smith wrote: “The use of street drugs, particularly psychoactive substances, by forensic patients on psychiatric medications, particularly those mentally ill persons who committed the ultimate act of violence, warrants intensive evaluation by the hospital and review by the State Forensic Service and the court in order to ensure that changes in treatment be implemented to protect the safety of the (patient) and the community.”
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