AUBURN – A local man who stole an airplane from Twitchell’s Airport and crashed it outside Montreal will not have to stand trial.

A Superior Court justice agreed Monday to accept Jason Begin’s plea of not guilty by reason of insanity after hearing testimony from two psychiatrists who agreed that Begin was severely mentally ill and hearing voices when he got in the cockpit of a Cessna 150 on Sept. 27, 2003, started it with a screwdriver and took off.

Begin, 26, told the psychiatrists that the voices were telling him to take the plane and crash it into the Atlantic Ocean.

“His ability to use logical, organized reasoning was disastrously impaired,” testified Dr. Ann LeBlanc, the director of the Maine State Forensic Service.

Both LeBlanc and Dr. John Newcomb, a private psychiatrist hired by Begin’s attorney, diagnosed Begin with pervasive developmental disorders, including schizophrenia and severe depression.

His problems date back to early childhood and they affect “every sphere of his functioning,” LeBlanc said. Newcomb testified that Begin had been off his medication for three or four weeks at the time of the crash.

As a result of Justice Thomas E. Delahanty II’s decision to accept Begin’s plea of insanity for the theft charge, Begin is now in the custody of the Maine Department of Behavioral and Developmental Services.

Since he likely will be committed to the state’s psychiatric hospital for years to come, the state agreed to drop four sex-abuse charges that were pending against him when he stole the plane.

The charges involve two children under age 14. The psychiatrists testified that Begin’s anxiety surrounding those charges heightened his mental illness.

Although Begin, who does not have a pilot’s license and had never operated an airplane, had some trouble taking off, he was able get in the air and head toward the ocean. Due to heavy fog, he lost his bearings, eventually ran out of gas and crashed the plane in a farm 25 miles from Montreal.

Begin survived the crash with minor injuries.

LeBlanc testified that one of the common characteristics of Begin’s mental illness is being mechanically adept. She said Begin was fascinated with machines to a dangerous degree.

After officials in Canada evaluated Begin and decided not to charge him, he was sent back to Maine to face the theft and sex charges.

Assistant District Attorney Deborah Potter Cashman was hesitant to accept Begin’s claim that he was too mentally ill to be responsible for his actions until she heard LeBlanc’s conclusions.

“These are real symptoms,” LeBlanc testified Monday. “He’s not making them up to get out of this situation. He’s had them since he was 5.”

According to court testimony, Begin spent many years of his childhood in a mental institution.

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