PITTSTON (AP) – A former state legislator and his 10-year-old daughter were critically injured early Tuesday morning when they were attacked during an invasion of their home, police said.

The home on Stoney Acres Road was entered at about 2 a.m., Maine Public Safety Department spokesman Steve McCausland said.

After the attack, William Guerrette Jr. and his daughter Nicole were flown by helicopter to Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston. Guerrette’s wife and a teenage son and daughter were also in the house, but they were not hurt.

Maine State Police and the Kennebec County Sheriff’s Department were working on the case together, McCausland said, but he didn’t provide any more details.

Guerrette’s home was the focus of an investigation last December when two young men were charged with stealing Guerrette’s safe while he was on an out-of-state vacation and his 18-year-old son was hosting a party that included underage drinking.

The safe contained more than $30,000 in cash and rare coins and historic bank notes valued at between $175,000 and $200,000.

Police later charged Daniel Fortune of Augusta, a former star athlete at Gardiner Area High School who was a friend of Guerrette’s son, and William Page Jr. of Manchester with the crime.

At the time of the arrest, Kennebec County Sheriff Randall Liberty said investigators found that much of the money was used to buy crack cocaine.

Fortune told WGME-TV that he was awakened and questioned by state police at 5:30 a.m. Tuesday, but that he didn’t know anything about the latest break-in.

AP-ES-05-27-08 1421EDT

Copy the Story Link