By Jodi Hausen,Staff Writer

FARMINGTON – A 26-year-old Solon man who pleaded guilty in May to leaving the scene of an accident was sentenced to six months in jail in Franklin County Superior Court on Friday.

Paul Hemond will serve six months of a four-year sentence for leaving SAD 9 Special Education Director Edward Ferreira in a ditch beside Industry Road in New Sharon after hitting him with his vehicle last June. Two witnesses said they saw Hemond “come to a screeching halt and throw several beer cans out the window” of his car before leaving the scene, Assistant District Attorney Andrew Robinson said in his opening statement Friday.

Ferreira sustained serious injuries and was flown to Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, where he underwent surgery several times.

A marathon runner, Ferreira was running beside the road when the incident happened. The accident shattered his pelvis and left him with a bowed leg and limp from a knee injury.

“He has not completely recovered to this day,” Robinson said.

Wearing athletic pants and a suit jacket, Ferreira testified that he “nearly lost his life” and endured “grinding intense pain” for months after the accident. He has undergone several surgeries with more expected, he said.

He told presiding Justice Joseph Jabar that he believed Hemond was intoxicated when the accident happened.

Although Hemond admitted to drinking two beers with his boss before leaving work the night of the accident, Ferreira and prosecutors contended that he waited until the next morning to report the incident so he could not be charged with operating under the influence.

“He panicked,” Ferreira said. “For all he knew, I was dead.”

He believed that press coverage of the accident the next day, revealing that police had DNA evidence from the beer cans, prompted Hemond to confess.

“I’m angry,” Ferreira said. The incident has “radically changed my life” and Hemond “minimized the event,” he added.

In Hemond’s defense, his attorney, Ron Hoffman, presented the court with a statement he said Hemond wrote without his counsel and which he had read for the first time Friday. He also presented several written statements testifying to Hemond’s character from his fiancee, mother-in-law, boss and friend.

“Paul is very sorry,” Hoffman said as Hemond sat beside him stone-faced.

However, Hemond broke down when he apologized directly to Ferreira and his family.

“I’m sorry for what happened. I was willing to help you no matter what I could do,” he said.

“He panicked, he did the wrong thing. It was a gross, gross, gross misjudgment on his part,” his attorney said. “He thinks about it every day. It’s had an emotional impact on him.”

He asked the judge to consider a significant fine and no jail time.

“If you leave somebody in a ditch to die, you should be sent to jail,” Robinson responded.

“I can’t think of a more serious way of committing this offense,” Jabar said in sentencing Hemond.

“If the victim had died, you’d be facing one to two years easily,” Jabar said to Hemond. “Actions have consequences,” he added, and walking away with just a significant fine in this case is not acceptable.

After a long hushed silence in the courtroom, Jabar sentenced Hemond to four years with all but six months suspended, three years of probation, 300 hours of community service and a 60-day license suspension after he gets out of jail.