Suspect in rape pleads innocent His attorney asks: Where’s monitor?

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BANGOR – The man charged with raping a Bangor woman at knifepoint on Sept. 18 should have been wearing an electronic monitoring device, his attorney said Thursday after the accused rapist’s arraignment.

Robert S. Fiorentino, 50, of Hampden, who has an extensive criminal history that includes sexual assault, pleaded not guilty Thursday in Penobscot County Superior Court to gross sexual assault, burglary, kidnapping and criminal threatening.

He also denied that he had violated his probation on convictions for burglary and theft in Hancock County.

Don Brown, the Brewer attorney appointed to defend Fiorentino earlier this year, said that his client’s probation conditions were amended in August to include electronic monitoring, but Fiorentino was never given the device.

“If he had been wearing one, the Department of Probation would have known where he was and so would I,” Brown told reporters at an impromptu press conference on the steps of the Penobscot County Courthouse after the arraignment. “I don’t know why he didn’t have one.”

Michael Roberts, deputy district attorney for Penobscot County, said Thursday after the arraignment that he did not believe that a monitor would have kept Fiorentino from committing new crimes.

“Given Mr. Fiorentino’s history, that’s an optimistic view of what a monitor would have done for him,” Roberts said in reaction to Brown’s statement.

Nearly one year to the day after he was released from the Maine State Prison, Fiorentino entered the Center Street apartment of a woman, described by police as in her 20s. He allegedly woke her when he came through an open window, threatened her with a knife and then raped her.

The woman reported the crime to police and was treated at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor.

The woman told detectives she recognized Fiorentino as a man she had seen several weeks earlier, who had asked her for directions and claimed he was delivering flowers.

Denise V. Lord, associate commissioner for legislative and program services for the Department of Corrections, said Thursday in a phone interview that the electronic monitoring devices did not arrive until last week. The company that makes the device, which includes a global positioning system, delayed its delivery at least twice this summer, she said.

“The request to amend [Fiorentino’s] conditions of probation was done in anticipation of having the electronic monitoring device available,” she said.

Lord added that the state had received about 30 of the devices for a pilot program to monitor high-risk sex offenders such as Fiorentino.

“He would have been a good candidate,” she said.

Fiorentino was sentenced in 1988 to 25 years in prison, followed by 10 years of probation, on 13 counts spanning three counties that included gross sexual misconduct, kidnapping and robbery. He was released last year from the Maine State Prison in Warren after serving 17 years of his sentence.

He was charged in March in Hancock County Superior Court with violating his probation on burglary and theft charges in that county dating back to 1987. Fiorentino was convicted earlier this year of violating his probation by using drugs and alcohol in Orono on April 25.

Superior Court Justice Jeffrey Hjelm sentenced him to 126 days in Hancock County Jail. The judge also amended Fiorentino’s bail in an order dated Aug. 10 to include the following special conditions:

. submit to random search and testing for weapons, drugs and alcohol.

. attend sex offender counseling as directed by the probation officer.

. live as directed by the probation officer.

. submit to electronic monitoring as directed by the probation officer.

. keep a daily log as directed by the probation officer.

Lord said Thursday that even if Fiorentino had been fitted with one of the devices, it might not have prevented the crimes with which he’s been charged.

“These monitoring devices are passive,” she said. “It doesn’t alert us immediately if someone is out of place. … It’s not a device that gives an immediate alert, so we might not have known where [Fiorentino] had been until probably the next day.”

The state leases the devices from the Australia-based SecureCorp for $6 per day. Officials must download information from the devices, which typically is done once every 24 hours.

“It shows us where people have been,” Lord said, “but not where they are in real time.”

The cost for devices that monitor in real time, for which a delayed download is not required, is $12 per day, Lord said.

Due to recent budget constraints, the department decided to begin its electronic monitoring pilot program with the less expensive device, she said.

The state has never used GPS monitoring devices before, according to Lord. One probationer under house arrest currently is wearing a device that notifies law enforcement officials if that person leaves the premises.

Fiorentino is being held without bail at the Penobscot County Jail on the probation violation charges. Bail on the charges related to the rape was set at $75,000 surety or $25,000 cash.

A trial date has not been set.

If convicted, he faces up to 30 years in prison on the rape charge alone.