Attorney: Police badgered suspect

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BANGOR – Both the state and the defense rested their cases Wednesday in the arson trial of 19-year-old Scott Gagnon under way at Penobscot County Superior Court.

Jurors will hear closing arguments from attorneys this morning and will then begin their deliberations.

Gagnon of Bangor is accused, along with 19-year-old Harold Hawkes of Bangor, of starting the fire that heavily damaged one of Bangor’s historic downtown buildings. The blaze destroyed The Extra Touch, the lingerie business, which for 21 years was located on the first floor of the building owned by Coe Management Corp.

Gagnon and Hawkes have been incarcerated since their arrests days after the April 4 fire. Hawkes is scheduled to go on trial for arson this winter.

Both men face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

The state offered no physical evidence or eyewitness testimony connecting Gagnon to the scene, but offered jurors on Wednesday a two-hour taped interview conducted with Gagnon by Bangor police during which Gagnon eventually confessed.

Defense attorney Jeffrey Silverstein of Bangor presented four witnesses Wednesday. One witness was a woman who saw two teen-agers walking up State Street near Rite Aid at about 3:25 a.m. at least half an hour before the fire broke out farther down State Street.

Silverstein is suggesting that the two people were Hawkes and Gagnon and that it is not reasonable to assume the men, who reportedly were en route to Gagnon’s apartment, would have turned around at the top of the hill, returned downtown and started the fire.

Also testifying Wednesday was a cabdriver who said she was sitting in the Rite Aid parking lot at the top of State Street hill just minutes before 4 a.m. and never saw the two men pass by the area at that time.

Another woman, who worked security at Community Health and Counseling Services testified that she contacted police after learning about the fire because she had seen three teen-agers running swiftly across Main Street at about 4 a.m. that day. She said she thought it was unusual for such young men to be out at that time. She testified that after learning of the time of the fire, she contacted detectives at Bangor police to let them know she may have seen something suspicious.

“They never called me back,” she said.

The woman said she called police the day of the fire and again a week later, but never received a return phone call.

For most of the morning, jurors heard the audiotaped interview that Bangor police Detectives Mark Hathaway and Robert Gould conducted with Gagnon three days after the fire. Hawkes had already been interviewed and arrested for the fire and had told police that Gagnon was also involved.

Gagnon spent most of the interview denying any involvement by himself or Hawkes, as police persisted in accusing him. At some points the young man cried and sounded flustered as he pleaded with police to stop pressuring him.

Silverstein has suggested to the jury that Gagnon only confessed because the police badgered him until he told them what they wanted to hear.

Gagnon admitted being in Hannibal Hamlin park with Hawkes during the early morning hours of April 4, but said the two men walked up State Street to his apartment and did not stop and set the building on fire.

Hawkes told police he threw something through the window of the store and then lit a Molotov cocktail that he was carrying in his pocket. He said Gagnon tossed the cocktail through the hole in the window and into the store.

For much of the interview Gagnon stuck to his story that he didn’t remember Hawkes throwing a rock and denied throwing the cocktail through the window, but Hathaway and Gould were persistent.

“I suspect when we talk to Scott [Gagnon], I’m thinking to myself now, he’s going to tell us he didn’t do this because he’s scared. And I got thinking why in the world would you do something like this? And what I’m thinking, and I know I’m right, is there was some sort of prank, some sort of …,” Hathaway said during the interview.

“I don’t pull pranks,” responded Gagnon.

“Listen to me a second now. You were horsing around. This got out of control. It’s a little bit worse than you thought it was going to be but I don’t …, ” Hathaway said.

“I was horsing around with somebody that night?” asked Gagnon.

“Yeah. Harold,” responded Hathaway.

“No,” said Gagnon.

“Yes,” said Hathaway.

Eventually Gagnon began to admit to having some knowledge such as Hawkes having the Molotov cocktail and the confession unfolded from there.

Before Gagnon knew what was happening, the detectives had him admitting that he was holding onto the cocktail.

With the plastic bottle filled with lighter fluid and topped with a handkerchief, the two men stumbled up State Street.

“I was kind of stumbling with it and I was just like and I was like what to hell. … Like, cause when I’m drunk and I get like I’m talking to someone I’m like what to hell? You know. And I was like what to hell do I have this f— bottle in my hands for. Excuse the language,” Gagnon said to the detectives.

“What did [Harold] say to you?” asked Hathaway.

“He said. I don’t know. Throw the thing,” said Gagnon.

“And you did,” said Hathaway.

“Must have,” replied Gagnon.

“Do you remember seeing the store on fire?” asked Hathaway.

“I remember seeing one gown. … There was three of them … and it was the red one,” Gagnon said.

Hathaway told him he should have called 911.

“I should have but I was drunk and I was scared and I didn’t know what to do,” Gagnon said.