Medway selectman has police run-in Truck check spurs obstruction charge

MILLINOCKET – Medway trucking company manager James Lee said he was protesting unfair treatment.

“It was just a case of me getting annoyed. It didn’t have anything to do with [Medway] town business,” Lee, a Medway selectman, said Thursday. “I feel I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Town police Officer Kevin Ingersoll saw it differently, saying that he and a state police vehicle inspector were having difficulty getting their work done because of Lee’s interference.

That’s why Ingersoll charged Lee, 42, of Medway, with obstructing government administration, a misdemeanor, on Feb. 19. He was released on his own recognizance.

The incident began at about 4 a.m. on Feb. 19, when the officer pulled over an Emery Lee & Sons logging truck on Central Street on suspicion that the truck was overloaded. Lee was not driving the truck but arrived at the scene shortly thereafter, Ingersoll said.

Ingersoll had the truck moved to the company’s garage on Central Street, or Route 157, and everyone waited for the inspector to arrive from Dover-Foxcroft, where he is stationed, Ingersoll said.

Lee was miffed at the several hours it took the inspector to arrive and became more upset when the inspector asked the truck be moved onto Central Street, which had a surface flat enough and snow-free for electronic weighing. He stood in front of the truck and refused to allow it to be moved, Ingersoll said.

“He was irate,” Ingersoll said Thursday, “but once he was advised he was under arrest he was as cool as a cucumber.”

Lee said it was difficult to watch police pull over one of his trucks after having chronic problems with theft from his garage and his truck.

Ingersoll said the truck, which has a 105,000-pound weight limit, weighed about 133,000 pounds.

Lee is due in Millinocket Superior Court on April 9.

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