Bangor man stands trial in Bar Harbor rape case> June 1993 incident results in charges against Jewett

ELLSWORTH — A night of drinking and bar-hopping in Bar Harbor by defendant Jay Jewett ended in violent rape, a Hancock County prosecutor told a jury in superior court Monday.

Bangor resident Jewett, 28, is on trial this week in Ellsworth, charged with two counts of gross sexual assault for an alleged incident on June 14, 1993, involving a 27-year-old Trenton woman.

Deputy District Attorney Steven Juskewitch told the jury in his opening statement that Jewett and his friend, Steven Wood, offered the woman a ride home from a Bar Harbor bar, The Beat Puppy, early on June 14. Neither man was an acquaintance of the woman.

Rather than delivering the woman home as promised, Jewett parked his car behind the Seaview Restaurant on Eden Street, forced the inebriated woman to the ground and forcibly raped her, Juskewitch told the jury, composed of 10 men and two women.

Jewett has contended the sexual contact was consensual.

The Jewett trial is the second trial this month in superior court before Justice Andrew Mead involving incidents of alleged sexual assault in Bar Harbor. Last week, a jury found Michael O’Connor guilty of two counts of assault and one count of attempted gross sexual assault for his contact with a tourist on the Shore Path in Bar Harbor last August. The jury deadlocked on a gross sexual assault charge.

Prosecution witnesses at the Jewett trial who testified on Monday told the jury about the agitated state of the victim in the hours after the alleged incident. Wood, who testified he was inside the dormitory housing at the Seaview Restaurant for a 25-30 minute period at about 2 a.m. on June 14, said he returned to Jewett’s car to find the young woman hysterical and screaming that she had been raped.

Wood testified that he and Jewett had traveled from Bangor to Bar Harbor during the afternoon of June 13, drinking beers in the car. After eating dinner, the two ended the evening at the Beat Puppy, where additional alcohol was consumed.

It was there that Jewett apparently offered the woman a ride home. Wood testified she was intoxicated and needed some help getting to the car. Rather than going directly to Trenton, Jewett stopped the car near the Seaview, ostensibly to visit a friend who was living in the seasonal housing. Wood said the incident between Jewett and the woman occurred when Wood was away from the car.

Wood said the woman refused to get back in the car with him and Jewett and so they left her on Eden Street, crying, and missing one shoe.

Seaview Restaurant owners Gerald and Judith Allen testified they were awakened early on June 14 to a woman screaming, “Leave me alone.” Testifying on a videotape made in court earlier this month, the two said there was a 10-15 minute silence following the first screams.

The Allens said they were once again awakened to the loud sobbing of the woman, who was then crying, “You didn’t have to do that to me,” and “I’m not getting in the car with you.”

The Allen couple said they had not called the police. “It’s hard to get involved when you don’t actually see a tussle,” Judith Allen testified.

Another prosecution witness, a friend of the victim, told of a telephone call she received from the Trenton woman at about 2:30 a.m. that morning. Melanie Clauson said her friend told her she needed a ride and that she had been raped.

Clauson told the jury her friend was crying, shaking, and had torn clothing. It was Clauson who encouraged her friend to call a rape crisis counselor and then took her for an examination at the Mount Desert Island Hospital.

A nurse on duty that morning told the jury that the victim was shaking uncontrollably and was very upset when she arrived at the hospital. The woman had bruises on her arm and leg and said she had been raped, the nurse said.

Bar Harbor Police Lt. Jim Pinkham said the victim had not been able to identify either Jewett or Wood in a photographic spread. In a joint investigation with Maine State Police Detective Matthew Stewart, Jewett’s connection with the incident was confirmed several months later. He apparently told Stewart he had sex with the woman.

He was arrested about one year following the incident.

The trial is set to continue and possibly conclude today.