LIVERMORE FALLS – A former highway department employee pleaded guilty Thursday to operating under the influence.

Ralph Black of Fayette was arrested after he allegedly backed into a house in a Livermore Falls town plow truck and later went off the road after he was called in to work to pre-treat roads before a storm in January.

Black, 55, at the time of the incident, had been on a trial list at the Androscoggin County Superior Court in Auburn, but after state prosecutors offered him a plea agreement he took it, his lawyer Kevin Joyce said.

Black was fined $500 and had his license suspended for 90 days, Joyce said. His driving license had already been administratively suspended, he said. Joyce said prosecutors took into consideration that Black had lost his job of 13 years as a result of the incident.

Black was dismissed from his job on the town’s highway crew by Town Manager Alan Gove in January and that decision was upheld by Livermore Falls Board of Selectmen.

Reached at his home Thursday, Black said he has appealed the town’s decision to dismiss him and is taking his case to arbitration trial.

He declined to comment on his OUI plea until after that process concluded.

dperry@sunjournal.com