Augusta man gets 30 years for slaying cabaret singer

AUGUSTA – The man who confessed to being the triggerman in last year’s slaying of Franco-American cabaret singer Jean Paul Poulain pleaded guilty to murder Tuesday and was handed a 30-year prison sentence.

Mathiew Loisel, 22, of Augusta, who was scheduled to go on trial in April, entered the plea in Kennebec County Superior Court.

Prosecutors said Loisel, who has a history of mental illness, shot Poulain after he and Corey Swift, 19, went to his apartment on April 24, 2007, to rob him.

Poulain, 62, was conscious after the shooting but died in an ambulance. He told rescue personnel that Loisel was the shooter and that Swift was with him.

Loisel made a taped jailhouse confession to a television reporter the day after the killing, and a judge ruled that the comments could be used at his trial.

Loisel told detectives that he shot Poulain because he had taken sexual advantage of him a few months earlier.

Swift quoted Loisel as saying that Poulin had money in Swiss bank accounts and that he was going to force him to transfer the money.

Swift pleaded guilty last month to felony murder and received a 10-year sentence.

Poulain, who began singing at age 5 when he accompanied his father in a duo, was a founder of Le Festival de la Bastille in Augusta and served for many years as its master of ceremonies.