Man gets jail time in alcohol-related death

FARMINGTON – A Farmington man has been ordered to spend two weeks in jail for buying vodka for an underage friend who fell off a cliff to his death.

John McCabe, 22, was sentenced in Franklin County Superior Court last week to 364 days in jail, with all but two weeks suspended. He also was ordered to spend 200 hours of community service telling young adults about the consequences of drinking.

McCabe and his friend Benjamin Paytas, 20, of Farmington hiked to an overlook in Chesterville last May and sat on the edge of a cliff drinking from a bottle of vodka that McCabe had purchased.

Paytas fell 80 feet to his death while attempting to retrieve a cigarette he had dropped onto a ledge below him.

According to prosecutors, Paytas’ blood alcohol content was 0.20 percent, more than twice the legal limit for driving.

Assistant District Attorney Andrew Robinson asked Friday that McCabe serve six months in jail. Robinson said McCabe has shown a pattern of disregard for the law and that he wanted the case to send a message to the community.

McCabe and Paytas were celebrating the last day of McCabe’s one-year probation on a conviction of filing a false report, Robinson said. McCabe had served two weeks in jail for eluding an officer in a high-speed motorcycle chase.

McCabe’s attorney, Walter Hanstein, told Justice Joseph Jabar it would be a better legacy for Paytas if McCabe continued teaching at a Portland group home for children.

He provided Jabar with letters of support for McCabe from his supervisors, but they said they couldn’t keep him on if he has to miss more than two weeks of work.

“This is not a case of a 25-year-old giving liquor to a 15-year-old. They were about the same age, were good friends, and there was no malice. But there were unspeakable consequences to the defendant’s actions,” he told Jabar.

Jabar said he believed that Paytas would have accepted some responsibility for what happened.

“He would ask the court for mercy,” he said.