Man unable to pay cab fare arrested

A New Brunswick man hoping to catch a bus to Pennsylvania to meet up with a traveling carnival was arrested Friday evening after he took a taxi to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor but couldn’t pay the fare.

Sheldon C. Paul, 44, of Fredericton, New Brunswick, told police he had been drinking all day when he started to feel pain from a cyst. Paul then called a taxi to take him to the hospital, Bangor police Officer Kevin MacLaren wrote in his police report.

Paul told police he didn’t have any money for the cab fare. He was supposed to meet up with a group of people in Bangor to board a bus for a summer carnival company out of Pennsylvania, he said. Paul never took the bus and spent the money on alcohol, the report stated.

Since Paul could not pay the $10.15 he owed the taxi driver, MacLaren arrested him and took him to Penobscot County Jail. Paul said he already had been kicked out of the local homeless shelter and another alcohol recovery center since he had been in Bangor.

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A Connecticut man stopped Saturday night for criminal speeding on Ohio Street was arrested and charged with marijuana possession as well.

Charles H. Wickett, 21, of Stamford, Conn., was clocked driving 61 mph in a 25 mph zone, Bangor police Officer Steve Jordan wrote in his report.

Jordan stopped Wickett’s car, a black Ford Mustang, just before Westland Street. Before the officer approached, he noticed the car’s windows were open, he wrote.

The smell of marijuana from the car was strong, and Jordan asked Wickett whether there was any marijuana in the car. Wickett said no, the report stated.

Wickett was arrested for criminal speeding and possession of marijuana. Two passengers, Cory Labrecque of Anson and Thomas Ostromecky of Greenland, N.H., both 21, were issued summonses for possession of drug paraphernalia.

Wickett asked the officer to let one of the passengers drive his car since neither was arrested, but Jordan said he would not let them drive since they had been smoking, his police report stated. The car was towed instead.

– Compiled by BDN reporter Eric Russell