Man sentenced to 1 year for role in home invasion

MACHIAS – An Eastport man was sentenced Thursday to one year in prison after he and another man broke into a woman’s home and beat her while her children watched.

Corey Sullivan, 19, also was given six years’ probation and ordered to attend Washington County Adult Drug Court once he is released. Drug court is an aggressive program of court-supervised drug treatment that began earlier this year in Machias and Calais.

Sitting in Washington County Superior Court, Justice Donald Marden warned Sullivan if he did not successfully complete adult drug court, he would be sent back to prison for the remaining four years of his five-year sentence.

An alleged companion in the June 18 incident, Jason Mills, 24, of Eastport, who also was charged with robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, criminal threatening and theft, has not yet had his case scheduled for trial.

In November, the state is expected to ask that a second companion, Joseph Fredette, 16, of Eastport, who also allegedly was involved in the incident, be bound over and tried as an adult.

During the sentencing, Assistant District Attorney Paul Cavanaugh related the events that took place during the home invasion.

On June 18, a 41-year-old woman called the Eastport emergency police number to report a robbery. She told the officers that just before the incident, Fredette had arrived at her home for a visit. A few minutes later, she said, two masked men burst through the front door.

Sullivan immediately began to search the house for a red toolbox, which he believed contained $10,000. He never found the toolbox.

Mills reportedly remained with the woman. While her children, ages 10, 11 and 12, watched, he allegedly struck the woman on the face three times while wearing brass knuckles, according to an affidavit.

The brass knuckles were never found, the prosecutor said after the hearing.

Cavanaugh said Fredette started yelling that the woman was bleeding, and Mills and Sullivan pushed him out the door

Mills then demanded the woman give him her purse, and she did. Police believe the two men were after prescription drugs, including OxyContin. They took her purse and ran.

The woman was taken by ambulance to Calais Regional Hospital. The bones around her eye were broken, and her lacerations required 14 stitches.

Cavanaugh said that in fashioning the sentence agreement, the state took into consideration the fact Sullivan was not directly involved with the assault and had no previous criminal record. He said the Eastport man also had accepted responsibility for his offense.

The prosecutor asked the judge to sentence Sullivan to five years in prison, with all but one year suspended, and six years of probation. After the one-year prison sentence, he is ordered to enter the drug court. If Sullivan fails to successfully complete drug court, he automatically would be returned to prison for four years.

Sullivan’s attorney, John Churchill of Calais, told the judge his client had a serious drug problem that led to his involvement in the crime.

“The focus of everybody is to get him into drug court,” the defense attorney said. “Not to minimize his behavior, but to get him to deal with his drug problem.”

The victim’s live-in companion, Philip Washburn, told the judge he had heard Sullivan had run around Eastport bragging a year in prison was “nothing.” He said he believed Sullivan should spend more time in prison.

But Churchill said his client had been under house arrest and had not been able to “run around Eastport.”

“He denies he made any such comments,” Churchill said.