NEWPORT – Three times was not the charm Friday when two juveniles were apprehended just feet from where they escaped from the Newport District Court. This was the third time that inmates have escaped from the facility, which is located in downtown Newport.

Fortunately, it is also located across the street from the police station and Officer Kevin Wintle was at his desk when the call came in that two males, one 17 and the other 14 years old, had thrown a metal chair through a holding room window and were on the loose.

“I looked out the window and there they were, running,” Wintle said. Both boys’ legs were shackled at the ankles preventing them from getting very far.

They were quickly apprehended by Wintle, several Penobscot County Sheriff’s Department corrections officers and a probation officer from the courthouse.

Wintle said the boys were each charged with felony escape and criminal mischief and were taken to the Mountain View correctional facility in Charleston.

A dramatic escape and capture took place in 1999 when Jason Belmer, 22, of Corinna, used his shoulder to crash through a window, also in a holding room at the courthouse. Belmer was appearing in court on burglary charges.

Belmer struggled with officers in the middle of Route 2, shed his orange jumpsuit and jumped into the Sebasticook River. Belmer was captured about three hours later as he ran, clad only in his underwear and socks, down the Sebasticook River bed behind the Newport police station.

In 1989, Leslie Scott Ashcraft, 26, escaped from another secure room in the same courthouse after his girlfriend opened the door when deputies went outside to smoke. His escape terrorized the area for weeks and led to a massive manhunt after the man’s true identity was discovered.

Newport police had initially arrested Ashcraft, under the name of Jon Knight, for aggravated forgery and had linked him to a plot to rob Bud’s Shop ‘n Save supermarket and a local bank.

After his escape, however, it was discovered that Ashcraft had a long history of violence, including the killing of his brother-in-law in Georgia during a botched drug deal.

Five months after he fled the Newport courthouse, Ashcraft was arrested in Georgia.

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