PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) – Maine is holding a man accused in an Oregon warrant of stalking and harassing women, but has found that Oregon is unwilling to pay to extradite him.

Since October, Portland, Maine, police Chief Michael Chitwood has asked, begged and even threatened Oregon officials to take back Dwight Lindblom, 53, who is awaiting trial on charges of accosting several women in Maine supermarkets and other public places.

“This guy’s a time bomb,” Chitwood said, noting that the offender has convictions in seven states. “We shouldn’t be forced to see if he explodes here.”

But money’s tight, and Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s office says the state won’t pay to extradite a relatively low-level bad guy from so far away.

Maine wants to get rid of Lindblom so badly that last week, the Cumberland County district attorney said Maine would pay the $3,000 to send Lindblom across the country.

Still, Kulongoski hasn’t agreed to bring Lindblom home.

“All I can say is that he hasn’t made a decision about this,” said Mary Ellen Glynn, the governor’s spokeswoman.

The reality, Oregon officials concede privately, is that the state doesn’t really need another sexual predator.

If Lindblom returned to Oregon, he probably would spend up to nine months in a Marion County Jail, said Diane Rea, chairwoman of the Oregon State Board of Parole.

“We’d be bringing him back to do a limited amount of time,” Rea said.

In Maine, he would serve six months at most.

“Then he would just be out on the street again,” Chitwood lamented. “No one wants this guy in their community. … We want to get rid of him as soon as possible.”

Lindblom’s convictions include a 1980 rape in Minnesota and sexual assault in California, Maine investigators said.

In Oregon, Lindblom did two years for burglary, which was the result of a plea bargain after he had already served almost all that time in jail.

He was initially charged with breaking into an 83-year-old Salem woman’s home and trying to assault her.

He disappeared six months into his four-year post-prison supervision in Marion County.

Chitwood said he doesn’t have much empathy for Oregon’s budget problems and has raised enough of a fuss over the extradition fight that it has become a major item on Maine television and in the state’s newspapers.

“For the cost of airfare, an entire community is put at risk,” the police chief said last month.

If Kulongoski refuses to sign the extradition papers, Chitwood has another plan.

“I’ll find out how much all of this is costing us, and I’ll send a bill to Oregon’s governor,” he said.

AP-ES-12-18-03 1637EST