PARIS – The man accused last week of pretending to be a police officer has a criminal record for theft and burglary and must surrender his state first-responder license once the new charges have been filed in court, a state investigator said Monday.
Meanwhile, Stanley Larson, 36, of Skillings Avenue, has been placed on administrative leave by Med-Care Ambulance in Mexico, where he works part-time. He also works on a per-diem basis for PACE Ambulance in Norway, a division of Stephens Memorial Hospital. A hospital spokeswoman said Larson “is not being scheduled” to work at this time.
Larson also works full-time as an EMT and deputy director of Tri-Town Emergency and Rescue Services of West Paris. Director Norm St. Pierre praised Larson Monday as a dependable and well-liked employee who has never caused him any trouble.
Larson has not been suspended or placed on administrative leave at Tri-Town Rescue, St. Pierre said.
“He may get that eventually,” St. Pierre said of a possible administrative leave, “but I can’t take him out of work until he’s proven guilty.”
However, a consent agreement Larson signed with Maine EMS in October 2002, in order to get his first EMT license, stipulates that he must surrender his state license immediately once any new charges have been filed in court, according to Drexell White, primary investigator for Maine EMS, a division of the state Department of Public Safety.
Larson must turn over his EMT license “the moment (the charge) is filed in court,” White said Monday.
St. Pierre said he could not take any action until he hears from the Maine EMS office.
Larson was summonsed Friday on a charge of impersonating a police officer after he allegedly used a red flashing light in his 1994 Ford Crown Victoria, previously a police cruiser, to pull over a woman driving on Route 118 in Waterford on Jan. 3.
The woman told police that the driver of the car got out of his vehicle and approached the woman. He returned to his car and drove away, the woman reported, after she asked for his identification.
Last December, Oxford County District Court Judge John McElwee dismissed 20 vehicle-related cases because the court was backed up and there were only five minutes left in the court session that afternoon. One of the cases was a charge against Larson for installing a bell and siren in an unauthorized vehicle, District Court Clerk Laura Nokes confirmed Monday.
St. Pierre at Tri-Town Rescue said Monday he thinks Larson was portrayed by area TV stations as a monster, calling the initial coverage of the charges “a travesty.”
Larson has not given St. Pierre any reason not to trust him or rely on him to help run the rescue operation that serves West Paris, Greenwood, Sumner, Woodstock and Milton Township, St. Pierre said.
There is no emergency equipment in Larson’s car except for a two-way radio, St. Pierre said.
In addition to working for the three ambulance services, Larson also is a volunteer firefighter in his hometown of Paris.
According to the October 2002 consent agreement, Larson was convicted of two counts of theft, first in 1987 and again in 1990. The second charge involved Larson’s stealing more than $1,000 from the Norway Lake IGA.
The Maine EMS board granted Larson his initial EMT license, but attached several conditions to it, including that he would “immediately surrender his license” if charges were again filed against him.
In issuing Larson a three-year license, the Maine EMS board noted that Larson had served his two-year probation for the more serious 1990 crime without incident and repaid the money he took from the IGA.
Larson also provided the state board many personal references.
“Accordingly, the board finds that the applicant has been sufficiently rehabilitated to warrant issuance of a (conditional) license,” according to the consent agreement.
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