Man gets 6 months for firearm violation

BANGOR – A Washington County man was sentenced on Wednesday in U.S. District Court to six months in prison for possession of a firearm with a pending protection from abuse order.

Bernard Lee Alley Sr., 52, of Harrington also was sentenced to three years’ probation.

He was indicted in February by a federal grand jury and pleaded not guilty at his March 8 arraignment. Alley was released on personal recognizance bail, which was revoked a month later after he was arrested by the Maine State Police after a confrontation and chase, according to court documents.

Charges of assault, refusing to submit to arrest or detention, failing to stop for an officer and violating condition of release stemming from that incident are pending in Washington County Superior Court. Alley has asked for a jury trial.

U.S. District Judge John Woodcock on Wednesday shaved a year off Alley’s potential federal sentence by granting him a sporting use exemption because the guns he possessed illegally were used for hunting.

The federal charges against Alley were filed after a Milbridge woman complained that he had been harassing her and that he carried guns. Alley was prohibited from possessing firearms because a former girlfriend had been granted a protection from abuse order through March 19, 2008, in District Court in Machias.

In an unrelated case, an Augusta woman was sentenced on Monday in U.S. District Court in Bangor to six months in prison for embezzling almost $25,000 from her former employer, an Augusta neurosurgeon.

Robin A. Dennett, 41, also was sentenced to three years’ probation and ordered to pay $24,863 to Dr. Julius Ciembroniewicz.

Dennett was ordered to report to the U.S. Marshals Service to begin serving her sentence on Oct. 12.

Dennett, who pleaded guilty in February to three counts of theft or embezzlement in connection with health care, was the bookkeeper and accountant for Ciembroniewicz from October 2000 to May 2003. During that time she wrote checks from the business checking account and cashed them for personal use.