Attempted murder charge dismissed

PARIS — A 48-year-old man indicted last year in a Norway stabbing has had the charges against him dropped.

The state dismissed charges of aggravated attempted murder and elevated aggravated assault against Steven Ray Piirainen of Coldwater Brook Road in Oxford. According to court documents, the District Attorney's Office is declining to proceed because the victim in the case is unavailable.

Piirainen was accused of stabbing then 44-year-old Steven E. Toothaker five times at an apartment building on King Street in Norway on June 9. According to a police report, Toothaker was wounded in the neck, shoulder, abdomen and arm. Most of the wounds were superficial, but it was also reported that the arm injury may have caused nerve damage.

Toothaker told police that Piirainen asked him for money and attacked him after he said he didn't have any. Toothaker walked to Stephens Memorial Hospital after noticing that he was bleeding.

Police later arrested Piirainen at his last known address on Ryerson Hill Road in Paris. Piirainen said he had been working all day and had not gone to the residence, and a then 18-year-old man also told police that he had been with Piirainen all day and they had not been in Norway.

The attempted murder charge cited Piirainen's conviction for aggravated assault in Androscoggin County in 2004 as an aggravating factor. In that case, Piirainen and another man were charged with beating a man at his apartment in Auburn, stealing marijuana and cash, and leading police on a high speed chase in 2003.

Piirainen had been free on $150,000 worth of property posted for his bail. The lien against the property was discharged after the case was dropped.

mlangeveld@sunjournal.com