BANGOR – A Winterport lawmaker charged with drunken driving last month has pleaded guilty to operating under the influence of intoxicants.

State Rep. Jeffrey Kaelin, a Republican, has expressed regret over the June 23 incident outside the Sea Dog Brewing Co. on Front Street, in which he sideswiped a van in the parking lot shortly after 10 p.m.

He later registered a 0.13 blood alcohol level after taking an Intoxilyzer breath test, according to police. The legal limit in Maine is 0.08.

Kaelin was sentenced July 13 to a $600 fine and a 90-day license suspension, according to the Penobscot County District Attorney’s Office.

Even more than the formal charge itself, it was Kaelin’s alleged brash comments to police that appeared to raise the most ire among voters.

According to police, Kaelin told an officer that he was a state legislator and police should be focusing their efforts on people who are doing “bad things” that are “really f–ing people’s lives up.”

Kaelin decided against seeking a third term after the OUI charge, which followed shortly after the June 13 primary. At a caucus on Monday, Republican residents of the six Waldo County towns represented by Kaelin – Winterport, Brooks, Swanville, Monroe, Jackson and Waldo – chose businessman Michael Thibodeau of Winterport as their replacement candidate.

Thibodeau will square off against Democrat Donna Gilbert, also of Winterport, on Nov. 7.