Orono man who led police on chase gets 6 years

BANGOR – An Orono man who stole a tractor-trailer in February from Dysart’s Truck Stop in Hermon, then led police on a chase through Bangor, Veazie and Orono was sentenced Wednesday in Penobscot County Superior Court to six years in prison.

Lee Harold Meservie, 42, was ordered to pay a total of nearly $10,000 in restitution to Dysart’s Transportation Inc. for damage to the truck, Bangor Hydro-Electric Co. for the replacement cost of the pole he hit, and to law enforcement agencies for damage to cruisers.

Because Meservie previously had violated probation, he was not sentenced to probation for this incident and none of his sentence was suspended.

Meservie pleaded guilty earlier this year to nine of the 17 charges on which he was indicted by the Penobscot County grand jury in March. The others were dismissed Wednesday.

He faced up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $20,000 on the most serious charge of theft for stealing the big rig, valued at nearly $250,000.

Meservie said he was drunk and not taking his anti-psychotic medications at the time of the incident.

“I’m sorry for what I’ve done, sir,” Meservie told Superior Court Justice William S. Brodrick at the sentencing.

“That’s good to hear because you weren’t at the time,” Brodrick said. “Even drunk, it’s hard to imagine someone doing this. Even after you were told you had almost killed several officers, you said, ‘I don’t care.'”

“As I said, your honor,” Meservie replied, “I wasn’t in the right frame of mind.”

The tractor-trailer he stole had been left running in the parking lot of Dysart’s, a popular truck stop on Cold Brook Road in Hermon, at about noon Feb. 11. He was spotted by a Bangor police officer at the intersection of Mount Hope and Forest avenues in Bangor with Veazie Police Chief Mark Leonard tailing the stolen vehicle.

The truck took a left onto Hogan Road, then started swerving and running police off the road, according to police. Meservie then turned onto Interstate 95 northbound. He hit two spike strips placed by state police but did not slow down, according to authorities.

Meservie got off the highway at the Stillwater Avenue exit in Old Town, crossed over the interstate and got back on heading south. Another spike strip was placed in the southbound lane, but the truck’s tires remained intact.

Finally, he came rolling to a halt in Orono when the tires shredded from the fourth spike strip placed at the Kelly Road exit. He took a left off the exit and tried to take a left onto Stillwater Avenue, police said, still swerving and causing oncoming traffic to go off the road.

Before the truck came to a complete stop, it clipped a telephone pole on the corner of Stillwater Avenue and Kelly Road, breaking it close to the ground. The pole had to be replaced, leaving 50 to 60 homes without power for more than an hour, according to Bangor Hydro.