Bangor man sentenced on gun charges

BANGOR – A local man was sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District Court to more than nine years in federal prison on gun charges more than three years after he failed to show up on his original sentencing date.

James W. Raye, 37, also was sentenced to three years of supervised release after completing his prison term by U.S. District Judge John Woodcock.

Raye, who pleaded guilty in February 2004 to falsification of a federal firearms application, faced a maximum of 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. Under the federal sentencing guidelines, he faced between nine years and two months and 10 years in prison due to his extensive criminal history, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Bangor.

He was convicted previously in state court of trafficking heroin, aggravated assault and domestic assault.

If he had appeared for his original sentencing date in July 2004, Raye would have faced between 61/2 and eight years in prison. Raye lost the reduction in his sentence when he skipped the hearing three years ago.

He originally was charged in 2003 after he lied to a Bangor pawnbroker when he went to retrieve a shotgun he had pawned earlier. Raye lied when he stated that he had not been convicted of a crime of domestic violence.

Raye was caught in March after a routine traffic stop when police discovered there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest in federal court in Bangor. He has been held at the Cumberland County Jail in Portland since then.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Lowell, who prosecuted the case, said Tuesday after the sentencing that he recommended Raye be sentenced to 110 months in federal prison. Woodcock accepted that recommendation

Virginia Villa, the assistant federal defender in Bangor who represented Raye, urged the judge to show leniency. In a sentencing memorandum, she argued that her client had turned his life around over the past few years.

Raye lied, she said, to retrieve the borrowed shotgun and return it to its rightful owner. She also said that Raye had been a model prisoner, working in the prison laundry and taking classes.

While awaiting sentencing, Raye was married in May in the jail to a woman he had been dating when he was arrested earlier this year.

Villa also told the judge that while he was a fugitive Raye addressed his addiction to opiates.