ROQUE BLUFFS – A minimum security prisoner from Downeast Correctional Facility in nearby Bucks Harbor walked away Wednesday from a work detail at a church.

Daniel McAllister, 40, of Bridgton was part of a four-member crew and was helping paint Roque Bluffs Community Church, which is located between the ocean and a wooded area, said Sgt. Donnie Smith of the Washington County Sheriff’s Department. He was serving a sentence for criminal operating under the influence of intoxicants, among other crimes.

McAllister was described as a white male of medium build, 6 feet tall and weighing about 200 pounds. He has brown hair and blue eyes. He wears his hair in a ponytail and is partly bald. He has a scraggly beard with some gray, said Mark Caton, director of the prison. McAllister was last seen wearing a gray sweat shirt and jeans.

“We have roadblocks up at every location,” he said.

Sheriff’s deputies were joined by other agencies, including the Maine State Police and the Maine Forest Service.

McAllister has been at the Bucks Harbor facility since October 2002. He was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment, with all but two years suspended and four years’ probation.

He was sentenced for criminal OUI, two counts of operating after revocation, eluding a police officer and reckless conduct, all Class C crimes.

Around 3 p.m., the work crew was performing community service at the church when McAllister simply walked away. “The crew supervisor basically looked around, as he does to make sure everybody is there,” Caton said, “And [McAllister] was missing.”

Caton said that four- and six-member work crews are detailed to various communities in the area either to do lawn work or to perform minor maintenance, including painting.

He said McAllister had not been a disciplinary problem, but that he has an alcohol problem.

“We haven’t had an escape in about 12 or 13 years,” he said. “He has been working on an outside work crew, and we have quite a few on our outside work crews that have never had this sort of a problem for many years,” he said.

People with information were being asked to call the Sheriff’s Department at (800) 432-7303.