Court dismisses Old Town assault conviction

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court last week threw out a felony assault conviction against an Old Town man accused of punching and kicking his girlfriend nearly two years ago.

In its ruling Thursday, the appeals court found that Superior Court Justice Andrew Mead should have instructed the Penobscot County jury to consider a self-defense claim offered by attorneys representing Barry Bard.

Prosecutors originally had charged Bard, 38, with raping and beating the then 40-year-old victim in her Old Town apartment.

In December 2000, Bard was acquitted of the rape charge, but convicted of assault, criminal threatening and violating his probation in connection with the violent altercation with the woman in April of that year.

The appeals court upheld the convictions for criminal threatening and violating probation.

Mead sentenced Bard in May of last year to four years and nine months in prison for his convictions on the three charges, the most serious of which, the felony assault charge, carried with it a maximum five years in prison.

During the 2000 trial, state attorneys alleged that Bard, after a night of drinking, hit and kicked the woman repeatedly and tried to drag her down the stairs and throw her into the Penobscot River. He then allegedly ripped the phone out of the wall, made her take a shower, and raped her, according to the prosecution.

Bard testified that a gash on his girlfriend’s head was suffered when the intoxicated victim fell on the stairs. He also said that she attacked him in the apartment when he tried to flush pills belonging to her down the toilet and that he accidentally kicked the phone jack.

During the ensuing struggle, the woman reportedly bit his knuckle, which was scarred as a result, claimed Bard, who acknowledged causing some of the woman’s facial injuries, but only in an attempt to rip his hand out of her mouth.

Because of the testimony, Bard’s defense attorney asked Mead to allow the jury to consider a self-defense claim.

Mead refused.

The appeals court disagreed last week, ruling that the jury should have been made aware of the self-defense alternative considering the nature of Bard’s injury.

As a result of the court’s Thursday dismissal of the assault charge, Bard will be resentenced on the lesser charges, the most serious of which, criminal threatening, carries with it a maximum of one year in jail.

Bard, who has a lengthy criminal record, has been jailed since December 2000.