PARIS – Charges have been dropped against one of two 15-year-old boys charged in June after a loaded handgun was found at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School, according to a state official.
Assistant District Attorney Richard Beauchesne said Friday that charges against the teen, who was believed to have held the gun for his friend, were dropped about two weeks ago. He is no longer being prosecuted by state or federal authorities, Beauchesne said. “The gun was never explicitly in his possession and I felt we didn’t have sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the gun was in his locker.”
Beauchesne said federal authorities are prosecuting the second 15-year-old, who is believed to have brought the handgun to school. The state will not bring any further charges against that youth because of the federal prosecution, he said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Darcie McElwee could not comment on the case Friday, or even acknowledge its existence. “Juvenile cases in federal court, of any kind, are sealed,” she explained.
Both teens, one from Norway and the other from West Paris, were initially charged with carrying a concealed weapon and possession of a firearm on school property after the June 9 incident.
According to police and a statement of apology submitted to the Sun Journal by one of the students, the 15-year-old who is still facing charges brought a loaded 9 mm handgun to school because he had been threatened by a group of non-students.
Both students were expelled from school by the SAD 17 Board of Directors for a year. Federal law requires a minimum one-year expulsion for students who carry firearms onto school property.
Eastman said Friday that although criminal charges have been dropped against one of the students, both suspensions may hold. He could not comment directly on the students’ cases because of privacy issues, but said in general that the Board of Directors looks at whether an expulsion is “necessary for the peace and usefulness of the school.”
What criminal prosecutors do is typically irrelevant to the directors’ actions, he said. “Our process involves school rules as well as board policies.”
Eastman said he has not received any formal notification of the charges’ being dropped.
Comments are no longer available on this story