Accused drug dealer arrested in Pittsfield after 6-week manhunt

PITTSFIELD – A 25-year-old accused drug dealer who spent six weeks eluding police from Colorado to Maine was arrested Monday morning after he made a serious mistake: He tried to flee in a car that was up on jacks then got into a fight with police on Route 100.

Police had been looking for Jason Belmer since Aug. 19, when he fled into some woods in Corinna after investigators found 8 pounds of cocaine worth $380,000 buried under a shed in the yard of his grandmother’s home.

Since then, Belmer had led police on a cross-country manhunt, and his fugitive’s tale was scheduled to be presented next month on the television show “America’s Most Wanted.”

Belmer eluded police in Colorado on Sept. 4. Law enforcement there said he assaulted a state trooper and fled into nearby cornfields. Belmer’s girlfriend, Michelle Carmack, 27, also of Corinna, was found with him in Colorado and was arrested and extradited to Maine.

Authorities believe Belmer stole a flatbed pickup truck on Sept. 5 and abandoned it in St. Francis, Kan., where he may have stolen another vehicle that contained weapons.

A tip Monday morning alerted Maine State Police that Belmer was hiding in Apartment 5 of Deer Hill Apartments in Pittsfield. Troopers then notified Pittsfield police.

Chief Steven Emery and Officer Rodney Minoty positioned themselves outside the apartment with guns drawn.

Wearing a bright red coat with the hood up, Belmer walked out the front door and immediately began running, Emery said.

“I yelled at him two or three times to stop,” Emery said, but Belmer swore at him and kept running east on Route 100.

At one point, Belmer crossed the road and ran up a snowmobile trail behind Dr. Jason Orr’s veterinary clinic. Minoty and Emery were still chasing him when Belmer jumped into a car outside a nearby home.

Apparently he didn’t realize that the car was on jacks.

Emery said Belmer locked the doors and started the car, but Minoty smashed the driver’s side window and removed him. Belmer struggled and was subdued with pepper spray.

“We had a bit of a tussle. We were rolling around in the middle of Route 100,” Emery said. Minoty received minor scrapes in the struggle.

From there, Belmer was taken in handcuffs to Sebasticook Valley Hospital, where he received stitches in his forehead from a small laceration caused by flying glass. Wearing a hospital gown, he was taken by Minoty, Maine State Police Trooper Christopher Carr and James Carr of the Maine Drug Enforcement Administration to the Penobscot County Jail in Bangor.

Belmer remained at the jail Monday evening under cash bail set at $100,000 on a warrant for unlawful trafficking in a scheduled drug. He is tentatively scheduled to appear in 3rd District Court in Bangor at 1 p.m. today.

Police had suspected Belmer was in Pittsfield for weeks, and DEA agents and state troopers in plain clothes were spotted at Friday night’s homecoming football game at Maine Central Institute.

“They knew he had been around since about September 22,” said Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety. “They just kept missing him.”

Federal charges of drug trafficking, a Class A felony, are pending against Belmer, for which he could face up to 40 years in prison. Additional charges related to his escape across state lines and assaults on police officers may be lodged.

Carmack, 27, remained Monday in the Penobscot County Jail, unable to make bail on similar drug trafficking charges.

Belmer received local attention five years ago when he was in Newport District Court facing burglary charges. While awaiting a hearing in a conference room, he crashed through a window at the courthouse, fled police and jumped off a bridge into the Sebasticook River.

After a two-hour manhunt, Belmer was found, muddy and bleeding and in his underwear, on a sandbar of the river. He was sentenced to two years in prison on the escape and burglary charges.

When he was arrested in 1999, Belmer was wanted on a warrant from Haverhill, Mass., where he was on probation for assault with a deadly weapon and assault on a police officer.

Extra precautions were being planned for Belmer’s court appearance.

“Obviously there will be some additional security put on him,” said Chief Deputy Troy Morton of the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Department.

NEWS reporter Doug Kesseli contributed to this story.