ALFRED – A Kennebunk man who tried to hire a hit man to kill his ex-wife’s girlfriend has been sentenced to six years in prison.

Bruce Hussey, 55, was sentenced Wednesday in York County Superior Court after pleading guilty to solicitation to commit murder and a lesser charge of criminal use of explosives.

Justice Roland Cole said the case exhibited elements of three of the worst kind of offenses in Maine: domestic violence crimes, hate crimes and crimes against women.

“Mr. Hussey has accepted responsibility,” the judge said. “But I’m very much concerned that he presents a risk to the community if he does not change his frame of mind. People have a right to live without fear.”

Hussey, who owned a successful construction company in Alfred, became enraged after his 31-year marriage ended in a bitter divorce in the summer of 1999 and his wife entered into a relationship with a woman.

Police got a tip from Hussey’s friend Joel Goodrich that Hussey was looking for someone to “blow away” his ex-wife’s partner.

An undercover drug agent posing as a hit man from Massachusetts met with Hussey, who told him he wanted the murder to look like a car-jacking. After Hussey’s arrest, a search of his home turned up a homemade pipe bomb.