PORTLAND – In a split decision Thursday, Maine’s highest court upheld the conviction of a 46-year-old transient from Florida for sexually assaulting and beating a Portland woman nearly four years ago and then leaving her for dead.

Brandon Drewry was handed a 30-year sentence after being found guilty of charges that included kidnapping, gross sexual assault and aggravated assault.

During the trial, the victim testified that she was out for a late-night walk when she met Drewry, who asked if she wanted to smoke marijuana with him. She said he later choked, beat and forced her to perform oral sex on him over a period of hours.

Drewry raised a laundry list of issues on appeal, including a claim that the trial judge erred in not allowing the jury to hear the results of DNA testing indicating that the victim had sex with someone other than her husband around the time of the Aug. 31, 2004, attack.

The Supreme Judicial Court split 6-1 on that issue with Justice Warren Silver siding with Drewry that the presence of semen from a third party could bolster the defense theory that another man was the attacker.

The court’s majority, however, found that the judge’s exclusion of the evidence to avoid disclosing to jurors the victim’s sexual history was not improper. The ruling noted that the jury was aware that the woman had a bad relationship with her husband and could infer that semen found in her vagina came from someone else.

The court also found there was sufficient evidence supporting each of the convictions and rejected Drewry’s claims that evidence obtained in a search of his bags should have been suppressed.

Arguments that he was denied a speedy trial and the right to represent himself also were shot down.