Appeal of award in stalking case denied

PORTLAND — Maine’s highest court gave short shrift Tuesday to a Virginia man’s appeal in upholding a $650,000 civil judgment in favor of a Windham woman who accused him of stalking her for more than a year.

In its two-paragraph opinion, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court brushed aside Richard Slaughter’s argument that the trial judge erred in allowing jurors to be told of his indictment more than a decade earlier on a charge of murdering a woman he had dated.

The Cumberland County Superior Court jury last year awarded the damages to Joanne Stinson, 32, who testified that Slaughter, a former Topsham lobsterman, had stalked and terrorized her.

The award included $150,000 in compensatory damages for emotional distress and the cost of protecting herself against Slaughter and $500,000 in punitive damages.

In a unanimous decision handed down less than three weeks after oral arguments, the law court found that the trial judge did not abuse his discretion in concluding that the relevance of Slaughter’s murder indictment was not substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice.

The indictment, handed up in Virginia’s Henrico County, was dismissed after a key witness left the area.

Stinson’s lawyer, William Knowles, could not be reached immediately for comment. Following the verdict, he said he planned a vigorous effort to collect on the judgment.

Attorney David Van Dyke, who represented Slaughter at the trial and in the appeal, said his client was living in Virginia but would not comment on whether he had the assets to pay off the judgment.

Van Dyke expressed surprise and disappointment at the supreme court’s terse denial of the appeal.

“I thought the issues raised justified more than a summary affirmance,” he said, asserting that the murder indictment was the key to the entire case.

“No question,” he said. “If there was no Virginia indictment before the jury, then the allegations that she presented at trial were quite pedestrian — less than you’d see in a standard petition from protection from abuse.

“There was no violence, no physical contact, no threat of violence,” Van Dyke said, suggesting that the most Stinson could claim was a series of invasions of privacy.

Knowles had maintained during the trial that the information was relevant because the murder indictment left his client, who had dated Slaughter several times, in fear for her life.

Slaughter, 38, did not attend the weeklong civil trial.