By Terry Karkos,Staff Writer

BETHEL – Former Bethel police Chief Darren M. Tripp didn’t get an early Christmas present from the Maine Law Court.

On Friday, the Portland court affirmed Oxford County Superior Court Justice Thomas Delahanty II’s September judgment against Tripp’s last appeal, ending a nearly two-year legal fight from Maine to Massachusetts and back.

“We took it to the 15th round, it’s over,” Tripp’s lawyer, Thomas Carey of Rumford, said Monday afternoon.

“We fought the good fight and gave it everything we could. We’ve gone as far as we can go, legally. Now, it’s just left to the court of public opinion,” he added.

Through a series of lawsuits and appeals in courts against Bethel officials and Town Manager Scott Cole, Tripp tried to regain his job of six years after Cole fired him on Feb. 12, 2004.

Reasons cited for the firing included Tripp’s failure to maintain contact with the Oxford County Regional Communications Center in the event of an emergency and failure to respond from the police station for 12 minutes on Dec. 2, 2003, after repeated attempts by dispatchers to alert him to an armed robbery in Bethel.

On March 11, 2004, Bethel selectmen, in a 3-2 decision, affirmed Tripp’s dismissal at a two-day termination hearing.

Tripp, who joined the Bethel Police Department in 1989, became chief in 1998.

In front of Delahanty on Sept. 10, 2004, in Paris, Tripp alleged that he was denied due process at the selectmen’s hearing and made a motion for a trial of the facts.

This June, Delahanty affirmed the board’s decision and denied Tripp’s motion.

In July, Tripp and Carey appealed to the Maine Law Court.

The Portland court ruled Friday that Bethel selectmen did not deprive Tripp of procedural due process, nor did Delahanty err in denying Tripp’s motion for a trial of the facts.

Contacted Monday afternoon, Tripp, who is now working security for Sunday River Ski Resort in Newry, said he had yet to read the court’s decision.

Cole also said Monday that he wasn’t aware of the decision, and declined comment.