FARMINGTON — A Chesterville man was sentenced Friday to serve one year of a five-year sentence and two years of probation for shooting buckshot at a truck leaving his residence Jan. 11.
Dennis Meaney, 26, pleaded guilty to a felony count of reckless conduct and two misdemeanor counts of domestic violence criminal threatening and domestic violence assault in Franklin County Superior Court.
Meaney has been held on $15,000 cash bail or real estate.
Assistant District Attorney Joshua Robbins said if the case had gone to trial, there would have been testimony from the person driving the truck that he had dropped off a relative of Meaney’s at Meaney’s home in Chesterville. As the driver pulled away, a load of buckshot was shot toward the back of the truck. Robbins said the testimony would show buckshot lodged in the truck’s dashboard, tailgate and the windshield, cracking it.
There would have also been testimony that Meaney threatened to harm the relative in the house and pushed her against the wall.
The shotgun was found on a neighbor’s property, Robbins said.
The incident was reported by the truck owner as vandalism but police Chief Heidi Wilcox was suspicious and called Detective Randall Keaten of the Maine State Police to investigate. The truck was taken without the owner’s knowledge, Wilcox said.
Judge Susan Oram, sitting in designation of a Superior Court justice, accepted the pleas. She sentenced Meaney to five years, all but one suspended, and two years of probation on the felony count.
She also sentenced him to serve 180 days each on the two misdemeanors to run concurrent to the felony sentence.
Meaney is required to pay up to $1,000 in restitution for damage to the truck.
He was given credit for time served. Among the conditions of probation are not possessing any weapons, undergoing counseling to the satisfaction of a probation officer and not possessing alcohol or illegal drugs. He is also subject to random searches and testing.
dperry@sunjournal.com
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