AUBURN — A Wales man pleaded not guilty Friday to multiple charges of gross sexual assault.
Christopher Austin, 43, appeared in Androscoggin County Superior Court Law Library where he denied eight counts of gross sexual assault dating back to 2004. He also denied a felony violation of condition of release. Each of seven of the sexual assault charges is punishable by up to 30 years in prison; one charge carries up to 10 years in prison.
A judge kept Austin’s bail at $2,000 for the bail violation and at $50,000 cash for the sexual assaults. Austin, who also has been charged with manslaughter in a 2012 hunting accident, agreed last month to be held without bail at Androscoggin County Jail until that case goes to trial, likely in June.
The most recent charges stem from incidents in which the victim or victims were younger than 15 years old and as young as 8 years old, according to police.
Defense attorney Scott Lynch asked for 45 days in which to file motions given the length of time that has passed since the older allegations.
Austin was charged with the more recent crimes on Dec. 23, following an ongoing sexual abuse investigation by the Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Department.
Austin had been free on $5,000 cash bail since 2013, when the Maine Warden Service charged him with manslaughter after he shot and killed a man while hunting.
But prosecutors filed a motion to revoke that bail after authorities reported Austin had been drinking alcohol and shooting guns at his home in violation of conditions of his release.
On Nov. 20, 2012, Gerard Parent was shot and killed near his home in Wales. Austin was charged with manslaughter and with discharging a firearm near a residential dwelling in Parent’s death.
Austin pleaded not guilty to those charges.
In October, Lynch asked the court for permission to allow two expert witnesses to testify that Parent had contributed to his own death, arguing that had Parent not been drinking, had been attired in the required blaze-orange clothing and had not been in the woods hunting on that day in November, he would not have been killed.
According to police, the two men were shooting at the same deer at the time of Parent’s death.
State prosecutors argued that the two experts should not be allowed to testify, nor should Austin be allowed to present evidence that Parent contributed to his own death.
Instead, the focus of the manslaughter charge “is not on the victim; the focus is on the conduct of the defendant,” Assistant Attorney General John Alsop argued, in deciding what testimony should be permitted at trial.
If convicted on the manslaughter charge, Austin would face up to 30 years in prison.
cwilliams@sunjournal.com
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