Caribou man to serve 5 years for sexual assaults on 3 boys

CARIBOU – A Caribou man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison with all but five years suspended after pleading guilty to three counts of gross sexual assault.

Hartley Damboise II, 42, is serving his second prison sentence for illegal sexual activity involving minors. In the most recent cases, Damboise admitted his involvement with three boys under the age of 14.

Damboise was sentenced July 11 in Aroostook County Superior Court. The three five-year terms, one for each count, are to be served concurrently. He also was given six years probation, during which time he will have to pay restitution of $15,000, or $5,000 to each child involved, for counseling fees.

A charge of tampering with a victim was dismissed as part of the plea bargain. Assistant District Attorney Todd R. Collins said Damboise had threatened one of the boys with harm.

Collins said the charges stemmed back to 1999. There was “some delay in the disclosure of the man’s activities,” he said Thursday.

Damboise was arrested in March 2002 after police looked for items related to the assaults, which took place in Caribou. Police seized printed material featuring child pornography and a computer from his home at the Caribou Trailer Park. Damboise was indicted May 10, 2002.

Collins said Damboise had been a janitor at a local store when he was sentenced.

This was not Damboise’s first brush with the law involving young people.

He served three years of a five-year prison sentence after being found guilty of unlawful sexual contact in Sagadahoc County in 1996.

He was arrested and acquitted in 1991 and 1993, both times in Lewiston, for unlawful sexual contact.

In the most recent case, according to Collins, Damboise enticed young people with drugs and alcohol and then assaulted them.