PORTLAND (AP) – A Kennebunk teenager who was sentenced in federal court for setting fire to an Arundel boathouse will be transferred today to a treatment program at the Long Creek Youth Development Center.

Patrick Vorce, 16, is happy to be serving the rest of his 30-month sentence at the Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland, according to his mother.

“He’s feeling like, Finally, I’m getting somewhere.’ So we’re pleased,” said Denise Collier.

Vorce and a 19-year-old friend were convicted of setting fire to Southern Maine Marine Services in Arundel in July 2002.

Vorce was 14 at the time of the crime, which caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage and destroyed property belonging to the Secret Service and an engine belonging to former President George Bush. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison, 27 months of probation and restitution.

He had been serving his sentence at a juvenile facility in Pennsylvania but was transferred back to Maine this spring for an appeal hearing in federal court in Portland, in which his lawyer argued that he was not receiving the rehabilitation required by federal law. As a result of that hearing, Vorce’s sentence was reduced by six months, pending review by an appeals court.

Vorce had been held in Maine since the spring, but was detained with teens who were waiting for their trials. He will now be moved to an area of the youth center where juveniles whose trials are over are held, and where many more services are available, according to Long Creek Superintendent Rod Bouffard.

Under the agreement that takes effect today, Maine becomes one of the states where juveniles convicted in the federal system can be placed, according to Denise Lord of the Maine Department of Corrections. There are no federal facilities to house the system’s roughly 250 juvenile prisoners.

Collier has charged that the Bush connection caused her son’s case to end up in federal court, a claim that federal official deny.

AP-ES-07-01-04 0217EDT

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