16-year prison term ordered in rape case

A convicted rapist received a 16-year prison term Friday in Penobscot County Superior Court.

Donald Ammerman, 34, of Bangor was found guilty in April of sexually assaulting last year a woman who lived in the apartment building he tended. Besides the rape charge, he also was sentenced for gross sexual misconduct and burglary.

During the four-day trial before an all-male jury, the prosecution showed that Ammerman had been in the woman’s apartment to make repairs during the week before the attack. On the night of the attack, the woman testified, he used his key to enter the apartment, then raped her while her young daughter listened in a nearby room.

The defense claimed that someone else had attacked the woman, pointing to hair samples and fingerprints from the scene that didn’t conclusively link Ammerman to the apartment.

Justice Jack O. Smith ordered the maximum penalty of 20 years as an underlying sentence for Ammerman on the two sex-related charges, then suspended four years of it and ordered four years of probation, during which he is to receive substance-abuse counseling. Smith also sentenced Ammerman to 10 years on the burglary charge. All the sentences are to run concurrently.