GARDINER — Two Gardiner men – one driving a pickup truck and the other a tractor – were arrested Monday night after an altercation that culminated in both repeatedly slamming their vehicles into one another.

The man driving the tractor, 63-year-old Robert Wilson, was sentenced to 30 days in jail Tuesday after pleading guilty to operating under the influence and reckless conduct. His driver’s license was also suspended for 150 days and he was ordered to pay a $500 fine and $185 in other fees, according to court documents filed by officer Daniel Ross.

The man driving the truck, 62-year-old Preston Cates, was charged with reckless conduct with a dangerous weapon and criminal mischief, according to police logs, but was released on bail Monday night.

Gardiner officers responded to a complaint on Ledgewood Lane around 8:30 p.m. concerning a possible violation of a protection order. Fifteen minutes later, police received a report of a fight on Ledgewood Lane.

When Ross arrived on the scene, he saw Wilson operating “an orange tractor” and Cates driving “a green pickup truck with a plow on it.”

“Both parties were ramming each other” and were “ordered several times at gunpoint to shut the vehicles off.” After several commands, they shut off their vehicles and were detained by police. Ross said there was “noticeable damage to both vehicles” and both men were aggressors in the altercation.

A witness told Ross that Wilson was plowing the end of the road with his tractor when Cates’s wife started yelling at him and recording him on a cell phone, court records say. Wilson reportedly backed the tractor toward his residence but Cates blocked the road with his vehicle. Then the pair began ramming each other’s vehicles.

Ross smelled a “strong odor of intoxicating beverages” coming from Wilson and he was “unsteady on his feet,” according to court documents. Wilson also reportedly yelled at the Cateses several times before he was taken to the police station, where he refused sobriety tests.

Gardiner police Chief Jim Toman and Ross were unavailable for comment Tuesday.

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