Former student sentenced in rape on Husson campus

ROCKLAND – A former Husson College student was sentenced Friday in Knox County Superior Court to eight years in prison with all but 10 months suspended for raping a female student in April 2003 during a dance on the Bangor campus.

Devin A. Deabler, 20, of South Thomaston also was sentenced to 10 months, to be served concurrently with the rape sentence, for unlawful sexual contact last fall with a different woman at Owls Head. He pleaded no contest to that charge Friday just before being sentenced by Superior Court Justice S. Kirk Studstrup.

Neither victim spoke at Deabler’s sentencing.

He also was sentenced to six years of probation after his release, Michael Roberts, deputy district attorney for Penobscot County, said after the sentencing. Probation conditions include no contact with the victims and psychological counseling.

The defendant faced a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison and a $50,000 fine.

The hearing was held in Rockland because Deabler has been held at Knox County Jail since Oct. 9 when he was arrested for violating bail conditions.

Roberts recommended Deabler serve more time in prison, but said Friday that the sentence “was in the range we recommended, although we’d hoped he’d serve three years.”

Deabler pleaded no contest last year in Penobscot County Superior Court to gross sexual assault for raping his former classmate. He admitted to police that he had consumed about 20 beers before he talked a female student from Gouldsboro, now 21, into going outside to look for a friend with him, according to Roberts.

The defendant propositioned the victim at a dance at Husson College on April 12, 2003, Roberts said at the arraignment. After the woman indicated she wasn’t interested in him, Deabler continued to approach her. Later in the evening, he talked her into going outside.

Deabler led the woman to a stand of trees not far from the building, Roberts said last year, and then raped her while she continued to say no. She immediately reported the incident to resident assistants at her dorm and to the Bangor police.