Lewiston man sentenced to 50 years in rape case

AUGUSTA – A Lewiston man was sentenced Friday to 50 years in prison for his third rape conviction in 22 years.

Michael Commeau, 48, allegedly forced his way into a woman’s car as she left her Monmouth workplace in October 2000, made her drive to a secluded location and forced her to perform a sex act.

Kennebec County Justice Thomas Warren sentenced Commeau to 10 years for kidnapping and an additional 40 years for gross sexual assault.

Commeau has two previous convictions for rape in Penobscot County in 1980 and 1982. He maintained his innocence throughout his trial last fall.

But police officers reported seeing a white van with no occupant parked at the reported site of the assault alongside Route 202, and the license plates were traced to Commeau.

Deputy District Attorney Alan Kelley sought a 100-year jail sentence for Commeau, calling him a “true ‘serial rapist”‘ in a sentencing memo.

Warren refused to suspend any of the sentence or to include supervised release or probation. He said the attack and rape were “completely in cold blood.”

“By my calculations Mr. Commeau won’t be released until sometime in his 80s,” Warren said after sentencing him.

Commeau is still awaiting sentencing in New Hampshire after being convicted of burglary in February 2000.

He was on bail on that charge when he abducted the woman in Monmouth.