November 15, 2024
Column

Two charged with taking chains from Home Depot

A 23-year-old woman returned two chain saw chains to The Home Depot in Bangor on Tuesday, claiming her father had bought them within the last two weeks. Problem was, the store hadn’t sold any of those chains for a month.

The woman, Angela Mayo, a transient, was arrested outside the store and charged with theft. Also charged in the incident was Mayo’s alleged accomplice, a 16-year-old Millinocket girl who had been seen fleeing the store an hour earlier, tossing away a chain as she went, according to a police report.

Bangor police Officer Brent Beaulieu was first called to The Home Depot about 6:20 p.m. after the teen-age girl set off the store alarm and ran off. A store employee pursued the girl, only to have her drive off in an older model blue car. Beaulieu searched the area, but couldn’t find the car.

The store called police again at 7:30 p.m. to report that Mayo was in the store trying to return the chains. An employee checked the parking lot and noted that the blue car and teen-age passenger had returned.

Mayo insisted that her father had purchased the chains, but the teen-age girl admitted she didn’t know why she had taken them. As police were taking the juvenile away, Mayo shouted, “They can’t prove anything,” according to the police report. The 16-year-old, who police learned is facing another theft charge and has convictions for shoplifting, assault and burglary, was taken to Northern Maine Juvenile Correctional Facility in Charleston.

As Old Town police Officer Todd Nadeau returned from dropping off one man arrested for drunken driving early Sunday morning, he found himself investigating another drunken driving case.

The two men charged in the back-to-back arrests were identified as Mathew Don Saucier, 21, of Bangor and Jayson Raphael Rush, 26, of Winterport.

Saucier was arrested first. Nadeau saw a vehicle stopped at the Plus Car Wash on Stillwater Avenue shortly after midnight. The car’s lights were on, but it wasn’t moving.

Nadeau discovered the motorist had become stuck in the snow. Saucier said he was trying to fix his stereo. The officer noted Saucier’s eyes were glassy and bloodshot, and he could smell alcohol on the man’s breath. Saucier claimed he drank only 41/2 ounces of alcohol over a two-hour period, but Nadeau reported Saucier was unsteady on his feet and showed other signs of inebriation during field sobriety tests. Nadeau arrested Saucier, charging him with operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor.

An Intoxilyzer test registered Saucier’s blood-alcohol content at 0.09 percent, above the legal limit of 0.08 percent. Searching Saucier, Nadeau found a small bag of marijuana, which Saucier claimed he was keeping for a friend, according to the police report. He was charged with possession of a usable amount of marijuana.

When Nadeau returned to Old Town after taking Saucier to the Penobscot County Jail, a car approached him near the Orono-Old Town line traveling at what radar determined to be 43 mph in a 25 mph zone. Nadeau turned around and, with his cruiser’s flashing blue lights on, pulled up behind the car, which had pulled into the Irving Mainway gas station.

The officer confronted Rush about the speeding and not wearing a seat belt. Talking with the motorist, he noticed the man’s eyes were bloodshot and glassy and that a strong odor of alcohol came from him.

Rush admitted to having one drink at a Bangor bar and two at an Old Town bar. Nadeau reported Rush swayed during the field sobriety tests. Rush was arrested and charged with OUI. His blood-alcohol content registered 0.13 percent, according to the police report.

A store security officer at Wal-Mart in Bangor reported seeing a man conceal DVDs in a store bag and go to the in-store McDonald’s for a sandwich before he was confronted by store management.

Jared J. Kremin, 25, of Hampden admitted taking 20 DVDs worth $772.21. Bangor police Officer Myron Warner reported Kremin said he planned to trade or sell the DVDs.

The store security officer told Warner she watched Kremin put a PlayStation2 and some DVDs from the electronics department into a trash can. He then headed for the housewares department, where he was seen placing the DVDs in a Wal-Mart bag. He then went to the McDonald’s, leaving the PlayStation game console behind, according to the police report.

An assistant store manager approached Kremin, who dropped the bag of DVDs and fled the store with employees in pursuit. They stopped him outside the store and escorted him back inside.

Kremin was charged with theft.

– Compiled by NEWS reporter Doug Kesseli


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