Maine prisoner makes plea deal in Vermont

MONTPELIER, Vt. – A Maine man, serving a prison sentence in his home state, spent two months at the St. Johnsbury prison recently while resolving a series of charges stemming from a crime spree across northern New England.

During his time in Vermont, Samuel Stone of Chelsea, Maine, reached a plea agreement with prosecutors that will see him serve at least seven years in a Vermont prison after he completes his current sentence in Maine, a prosecutor said.

Essex County State’s Attorney Vince Illuzzi said Stone, 40, was brought to Vermont under the Interstate Agreement on Detainers.

The agreement is used three or four times a year to bring people wanted in Vermont back to the state after they have been arrested in other jurisdictions, said Robin Orr, executive director of the Vermont State’s Attorneys Association.

In 1993 and 1994 Stone, his ex-wife and another man were involved in a series of burglaries across northern New England. Stone allegedly stole $313,000 in cash from an Island Pond couple’s snowmobile dealership, $15,000 from a Bloomfield junkyard and then burglarized and set fire to a Brunswick camp.

While Stone committed a series of property crimes, he was never violent, Illuzzi said.

“If there’s one good thing you can say about the guy, there were no physical victims,” Illuzzi said.

The benefit to Stone of making the plea agreement was that it will shave two years off his Vermont sentence, because the first two years of his nine- to 15-year sentence can be served while he remains jailed at the Maine Correctional Facility in South Windham, Maine, Illuzzi said.

Stone is due to be released from the Maine prison, where he is being held on a burglary conviction, in the winter of 2003. Once he is released from prison there he will be brought to Vermont where he will begin serving his Vermont sentence.

In 1998 Stone’s now ex-wife, in exchange for not being prosecuted, drove around the Northeast Kingdom with investigators pointing out the locations the crimes had been committed.

As part of the plea agreement, Stone will be required to make restitution to his victims. Illuzzi said officials were looking into the possibility that Stone owned some property in Maine that could be sold to make the restitution.