Man guilty of 7th OUI

BANGOR – A Bar Harbor man arrested in October for drunken driving in Acadia National Park was found guilty Tuesday in U.S. District Court.

This was William R. McFarland’s seventh conviction for operating under the influence since 1976, and the second in six months – both at Maine’s national park.

Crimes committed in federal parks and on other government-owned land are handled in federal courts, which is why McFarland’s case was heard in Bangor.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Margaret J. Kravchuk presided over Tuesday’s jury-waived trial, finding McFarland, 50, guilty of one count of operating under the influence and one count of possession of a controlled substance, both Class B misdemeanors.

He will be sentenced Dec. 13 in U.S. District Court and faces a maximum sentence of six months in jail for each charge, up to a year of supervised release and also could lose his license for up to one year.

On Oct. 9, park rangers responded to a report of an erratic vehicle and found McFarland slumped over the wheel of his car on Park Loop Road. Rangers also found about 10 grams of marijuana in his vehicle.

McFarland’s attorney, David Bate of Bangor, said Tuesday after the trial that the case centered on whether evidence proved his client was in what the defense attorney called “actual, physical control” of the vehicle.

“The evidence was that [police] found him in the car with the keys in the ignition, but he was asleep,” Bate said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney James M. Moore said, however, that National Park Service rangers and Bar Harbor police did a good job of collecting evidence, including videotape of McFarland’s Intoxilyzer test, which showed his blood alcohol content at 0.31.

McFarland also was arrested in May on similar charges for driving in Acadia with a blood alcohol level of 0.36 – more than four times the legal limit. The legal limit is 0.08.

He pleaded guilty in May, served seven days in jail and had his license suspended for 90 days.

Moore said McFarland’s conviction in May was the first time he can remember prosecuting an OUI case from Acadia National Park.