WEST PARIS – William Aridas of West Paris, who was severely burned in a plane crash near Greenville on Sunday, remained in critical condition at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, an official there said late Tuesday night.

Aridas, in his 60s, was one of three passengers being flown from Horseshoe Pond to Greenville after a weekend fishing trip when the accident occurred. The others were former West Paris town meeting moderator Vernon Inman, 77, and West Paris Selectman Harlan Abbott, 67. Inman was killed in the crash and Abbott died at midnight Sunday at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston from burns suffered in the crash.

The pilot, 32-year-old Richard Dill of Greenville, reported to state police that the engine stalled and the plane crashed into the base of Elephant Mountain and burst into flames. He suffered burns when he tried to pull Abbott and Aridas from the plane.

Sun Journal staff
Teen indicted on two sex charges

AUGUSTA (AP) – A teenage boy honored as the Waterville area YMCA’s youth of the year has been indicted on two felony child sex charges.

Mark Allen Desisles, 18, of Waterville, is charged with gross sexual assault and sexual contact with a 6-year-old boy.

Desisles, the most recent recipient of the Youth of the Year Award given by the Waterville Area Boys & Girls Club/YMCA, is accused of forcing the boy to engage in oral sex and touching the boy in an improper way earlier this year.

Desisles was arrested last mont, and Waterville police said at the time that he admitted to one instance of abuse. He was indicted by a Kennebec County grand jury.

Gross sexual assault carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, while unlawful sexual contact is punishable by up to five years in prison.

Under the conditions of Desisles’ release on bail, he can’t have contact with children under 14 unless they are family members.

Desisles is scheduled to be arraigned Friday in Kennebec County Superior Court.

Moscow death ruled a homicide

MOSCOW (AP) – The death of a Moscow man whose body was found in a pool of blood outside his mobile home was ruled a homicide on Tuesday.

An autopsy by the state medical examiner’s office confirmed that Alford “Buddy” Blake, 65, was shot to death, said Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.

McCausland declined to release additional details about the circumstances of Blake’s death. A team of eight detectives was assigned to work on the case, the spokesman said.

Blake had at one time owned a business in nearby Bingham, but in recent years did not work and was in failing health, McCausland said. He lived alone in the trailer.

Ex-official arrested on forgery charges

AUGUSTA (AP) – The former town treasurer in Manchester was arrested Monday on 31 counts of aggravated forgery in connection with the disappearance of $212,000 in municipal funds.

Patsy Rollins, 50, of Sidney, was taken into custody while she was picking up belongings from a former residence in Augusta. She was later released on bail.

Rollins was Manchester’s treasurer, tax collector and town clerk between 1998 and 2000, when the money went missing.

She is also the defendant in a civil lawsuit by the town and the Maine Municipal Association. The MMA hopes to recover $150,000 it paid the town as its insurer. The town was not reimbursed for the other $62,000 that disappeared.

Rollins was indicted Friday by a Kennebec County grand jury, but the indictment remains sealed.

In a May interview, Rollins professed her innocence and said the town’s books were in shambles when she took the reins.

She does not know what became of the money.

Prison official pleads guilty

THOMASTON (AP) – The deputy warden of the Maine State Prison was fined $300 for punching a man in the face outside his home.

A judge imposed the fine after Albert L. Barlow, 53, of Thomaston, pleaded guilty through his attorney on Thursday. The assault is a misdemeanor.

Barlow, who is the top administrator at the minimum security Bolduc Correctional Facility next to the Maine State Prison, punched Jason Walsh, 20, of South Thomaston, in the face at about 3 a.m. on June 7.

Before the incident, a Thomaston police officer responded to a complaint of a suspicious vehicle in Barlow’s neighborhood. When the officer arrived, Walsh came out from behind a tree.

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