PARIS – Stanley Larson, on trial on a charge of impersonating a police officer, sat in the corridor of the courthouse Thursday surrounded by family and friends, many of whom wore strained expressions as the hours passed with no verdict from the jury.
By 4 p.m., after the 12 members of the jury had deliberated behind closed doors for more than four hours, Justice Ellen Gorman said their time had run out for the day.
They return Friday at 9 a.m. to continue seeking a consensus on whether Larson was the man who pulled over a local woman last winter on Route 118.
Larson’s trial began Wednesday at the Oxford County Superior Court. The 37-year-old emergency medical technician from Paris has been accused of stopping a woman around 11:30 p.m. on Jan. 3 in Waterford with a red flashing light. The man asked her to get out of the car, but retreated and drove off when she asked for identification.
Before the jury went into deliberation Thursday morning, they heard closing arguments from the prosecution and defense.
Assistant District Attorney Joseph O’Connor said the woman helped police draw a composite of the man, which closely resembled Larson. He said the police lieutenant who made the composite recalled that the woman was a good witness because she provided a lot of detail.
She then picked Larson’s face out of a photographic lineup of six men last January, as well as identified him in court on Wednesday, O’Connor told the jury.
But Attorney Alan Perry, who is defending Larson, pointed out that the encounter was brief and the road was dark, making it harder for the woman to make out the man’s features, especially because he shined a flashlight on her (albeit on her shoulder, O’Connor said).
Perry argued that the woman originally told police that the man who stopped her was 6-feet tall and heavyset, and that he spoke with a stutter.
Larson speaks clearly and has a slight build.
The woman admitted to police after the incident she was not sure of the man’s size.
“In winter in Maine, it’s hard to tell the chubby folks from the skinny folks and when spring comes around, we have mixed feelings about that,” O’Connor said, making his point that the man had been bundled in a coat. And the stutter could have been nervous excitement, he added.
As each side drew on details to make their case, the other side rebutted them, even on matters as small as the coat the suspect was wearing.
Perry said the woman remembered the man in a black, shiny leather coat, which police never found in Larson’s home or car.
There’s also the issue of the red flashing light. When Maine State Trooper Andre Paradis searched the trunk of Larson’s 1994 Ford Crown Victoria, he found a red light in the trunk that illuminated but did not rotate of flash properly. He also found a heavy flashlight.
Perry said the red light had not been working for months, and that Larson never used it.
But O’Connor questioned why a man would keep a broken light in his car for so long.
O’Connor said the fact that Larson drove a used police car, carried a red light and a flashlight, and had been identified by the victim pointed to his guilt.
Yet, Perry said it was extremely improbable Larson had committed the crime. He was working long days and on Jan. 3, had wrapped up a 14-hour day working for Tri-Town Rescue of West Paris.
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