AUGUSTA – A Brownfield woman who threatened to drag three black students behind her car at Fryeburg Academy has been permanently barred from there.

The Attorney General’s Office said Friday that an injunction was ordered recently in Oxford County Superior Court against Roseann Hinds, 43, for violating the Maine Civil Rights Act. Superior Court Justice Ellen Gorman issued the order, which also names Francis Warren, 42, of Brownfield.

The court found that Hinds harassed and assaulted two African-American women students and a Bermudian male student at Fryeburg Academy in 2001 and that Hinds and Warren assaulted an African-American guest of their niece at their Brownfield home in 2002.

Leanne Robbin, assistant district attorney general, said the injunction should be served on the couple next week.

The court found that the conduct of Hinds and Warren was motivated by bias toward the victims’ race, ancestry or national origin.

The injunction prohibits them from coming onto the property of Fryeburg Academy or within 150 feet of the victims, their residences or families.

They are also permanently barred from threatening or using physical force or violence against any other person because of that person’s race, color, religion, sex, ancestry, national origin, physical or mental disability or sexual orientation.

Violation of this order is a Class D crime, punishable by up to one year in jail and a fine of up to $2,000.

Robbin said Hinds drove by three students on the Fryeburg campus in April 2001 and told them to go home. She then stopped her car, got out and pushed them.

“She threatened to use a tire iron and drag them behind her car,” Robbin said. “She used the ‘n’ word several times.”

Robbin said the threat to drag the students was in reference to the hate crime in Texas in 1998 in which an African-American named James Bird Jr. died from injuries when he was dragged behind a truck.

Robbin said one of the women was from Chicago and said she chose Fryeburg as a “quiet, rural place to study.”

Hinds was charged with assault, terrorizing and criminal trespass and pleaded no contest in Bridgton District Court in August 2001. She was sentenced to 60 days, which was suspended, and one year probation.

Hinds and Warren were charged with assault in the attack at their home in August 2002 and pleaded to Class D disorderly conduct in Oxford County Superior Court in October of 2003. They were fined $200 each.

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