Well-secured Belmer appears in court

BANGOR – A Corinna man who disappeared six weeks ago into a Colorado cornfield appeared Tuesday in 3rd District Court, his hands and ankles manacled, and surrounded by four Penobscot County deputy sheriffs, to face drug trafficking charges.

Jason Belmer, 25, was formally charged with one count of aggravated trafficking in scheduled drugs but did not enter a plea.

If convicted, Belmer could be sentenced to up to 40 years in prison and fined up to $50,000.

Police had been looking for 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, according to police.

District Court Judge Anne Murray set bail Tuesday at $500,000 cash or $1 million surety as prosecutors recommended. Belmer is not expected to make bail.

In court Tuesday, Belmer wore a bloody bandage on his forehead, the result of his latest tussle with police who arrested him in Pittsfield on Monday.

Assistant Attorney General William Savage, who is prosecuting the case, said in court Tuesday that Belmer had “held a woman against her will” and had fled Maine for Florida before being stopped for a traffic violation in Colorado.

After the hearing, Savage and Penobscot County District Attorney R. Christopher Almy refused to elaborate on details about where Belmer had been and when. Prosecutors also refused to identify the woman in the alleged incident and have had affidavits in the case sealed until at least mid-November.

A tip Monday morning alerted Maine State Police that Belmer was hiding in a Pittsfield apartment. Belmer ran when he spotted Pittsfield police.

Officers chased him across a road and behind a veterinary clinic when Belmer jumped into a car outside a nearby home. Apparently he didn’t realize that the car was on jacks. Belmer locked the doors and started the car, but an officer smashed the driver’s side window and removed him. Belmer struggled and was subdued with pepper spray.

The ex-fugitive was taken in handcuffs to Sebasticook Valley Hospital, where he received stitches in his forehead from a small laceration caused by flying glass.

He also eluded police in Colorado on Sept. 4. Law enforcement officials 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, arrested and extradited to Maine. She remains in the Penobscot County Jail, unable to make bail on drug charges.

Prosecutors refused Tuesday to say if she was the woman Belmer allegedly held against her will or if she willingly fled the state with him.

Should Belmer make bail, conditions set by the judge include no contact with Carmack, his grandmother and another woman prosecutors described as a witness.

Additional charges related to his escape across state lines and assaults on police officers may be lodged in Maine and in other states, according to Almy.

Belmer received local attention five years ago when he was in 3rd District Court in Newport 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.