A convicted child rapist from Massachusetts who fled during his trial last month was arrested Friday in Farmingdale.
Stephen Corbin Jr., 38, of Methuen, Massachusetts, was arrested by members of the U.S. Marshals Maine Violent Offender Task Force at a house in Farmingdale, after Massachusetts State Police learned he might be at the residence.
Task force members went to the house Friday morning, and a car pulled up to the home, with Corbin as a passenger, according to a statement from the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts and the Massachusetts State Police.
Stephen Corbin Jr. Contributed photo
Marshals approached the car and arrested Corbin, who was armed with a gun. He was charged in Maine as a fugitive from justice and a felon in possession of a firearm.
Officials have not released the address of the house in Farmingdale where Corbin was arrested.
Marian Ryan, the district attorney in Middlesex County, said she is arranging for Corbin’s return to Massachusetts, where he is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday in connection with his conviction on eight counts of aggravated rape of a child.
Corbin was convicted of sexually assaulting two girls he knew — one 14, the other 15 — on multiple occasions in 2017 in Lexington and Bedford, Massachusetts, according to the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office.
He was convicted April 14 of eight counts of aggravated rape of a child. Corbin, however, fled during his trial, and investigators could not locate him until he was arrested Friday in Maine.
Following his arraignment in 2017, Corbin was released on $25,000 cash bail and ordered to wear a GPS monitoring device. He appeared last month for the first three days of his six-day trial, but then reportedly cut off his GPS bracelet and fled.
Police said they think Corbin was near or in Andover, Massachusetts, when he removed the tracking device. His truck was located close to his former residence in Methuen.
During a press conference May 3 at which Massachusetts officials asked for the public’s help in locating Corbin, Ryan said once a trial has begun, if a defendant “voluntarily absents themselves, the trial can continue.”
“It is relatively rare for somebody to just disappear in the middle of a trial,” Ryan said.
Asked if Corbin’s escape had been concerning or frustrating for the girls who were victims in the case and had testified against Corbin, Ryan said: “It has been a very long road. It is obviously difficult to come in and testify in open court about these things, particularly given the age of these young girls, and then to be in the middle of a trial when suddenly the alleged perpetrator disappears.”
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