AUBURN – A judge has denied a new trial for a Lewiston man convicted of kidnapping and murdering an 81-year-old neighbor and stuffing his dead body into the trunk of his car.

David Lakin, 25, of Lewiston is serving 52 years in prison in connection with the slaying. He was in Androscoggin County Superior Court seeking a second trial.

Lakin’s lawyer, Verne Paradie Jr., argued during a half-hour Tuesday afternoon hearing that his client’s trial last year was tainted by perjured testimony.

Paradie offered an affidavit by Shaun Tuttle, co-defendant at the first trial, who said he had asked a witness to lie for him during the trial. At that trial, Lakin and Tuttle tried to pin the blame on each other. Both were convicted.

An appeal didn’t change the outcome when the Maine Supreme Judicial Court upheld the lower court’s finding in June.

In the sworn statement, penned in February, Tuttle wrote: “I had Richard Kendall lie for me at trial because I thought it would help him out and help me out. I shared some information with him and he said he would state to the court that he heard it from Dave” Lakin.”

Kendall, Lakin and Tuttle were all housed at Androscoggin County Jail before the trial.

Paradie said Kendall’s testimony was so damning that, were he not to take the witness stand again, Lakin “probably” would be acquitted at a retrial.

Kendall had pointed the finger at Lakin during the trial, saying he admitted to strangling James McManus and driving the man’s car over his head, Paradie said.

But Assistant Attorney General Fernand LaRochelle disagreed with Paradie’s conclusion. He said Tuttle likely would have been found not guilty had Kendall’s testimony been that persuasive. Instead, Tuttle was convicted and sentenced to 47 years.

For that reason, the jury probably disregarded Kendall’s testimony and focused on other testimony and evidence presented at trial.

Kendall stood by his original testimony on Tuesday when LaRochelle called on him to testify.

LaRochelle outlined the state’s case again, including physical evidence that tied both Lakin and Tuttle to the murder.

“When you consider all that evidence…it is not by any means clear there would be a different verdict if this new evidence were introduced in this case,” he said. He also noted that Tuttle’s statement doesn’t impeach his own testimony, only that of Kendall.

Justice Thomas Delahanty II agreed with LaRochelle. Paradie failed to offer new evidence to show a new jury would reach a different verdict, Delahanty said.

Paradie said he planned to appeal Delahanty’s ruling to Maine’s highest court.

Lakin, who is serving his sentence at Maine State Prison, appeared in light blue jail garb, his head shaved and a thin goatee on his chin.