PORTLAND – Prosecutors rested their case Thursday against Robert LaPointe, 39, of Medway, Mass., and Bridgton, who is charged with two counts of manslaughter in connection with the boating deaths of two people on Long Lake last year.

The state’s final witness, Maine Warden Capt. Daniel Scott, explained to a Cumberland County Superior Court jury his efforts to re-enact a portion of the accident in an attempt to better gauge LaPointe’s ability to see the other boat that night.

Shortly after 9 p.m. on Aug. 11, 2007, LaPointe’s 32-foot twin-engine racing boat ran over a 14-foot motorboat carrying Terry Raye Trott, 55, of Harrison, and Suzanne Groetzinger, 44, of Berwick. Trott and Groetzinger were killed.

The warden said it was possible to see another boat on the lake without lights at a distance of up to 140 feet. His eyes watered, though, hindering his vision at a speed of 45 mph, the same speed LaPointe told investigators he had been traveling.

The defense began presenting its case late Thursday morning by calling several of LaPointe’s friends to testify to the amount of alcohol LaPointe drank on the day of the accident. Defense attorneys are expected to rest their case Friday. Justice Robert Crowley told LaPointe he would be the first witness to take the stand Friday if he wished to testify.

Most of the witnesses Thursday said they only saw LaPointe for several hours during the day of the crash and that he drank no more than a few beers. LaPointe had made a statement that Saturday night to a Bridgton Hospital nurse who drew his blood to be tested for its blood-alcohol content, saying he’d been drinking beer all day, stopped for an hour before the crash, then drank some more, she testified last week.

The state presented evidence that the test showed his blood-alcohol level was 0.11 percent three hours after the crash. The state threshold for drunken driving is 0.08 percent.

LaPointe had been clearing his land in Bridgton that Saturday morning and was not drinking alcohol, witnesses said. He then appeared at a lunch spot in his boat and ate a turkey club sandwich with two men. Although he ordered a beer, he ended up drinking a Sprite, one witness said.

He appeared at a popular spot called the “sandbar” for a couple of hours that afternoon. Friends said they saw him drink as many as three Bud Light beers there before he left. They said he acted soberly.

Several of those friends told prosecutors on cross-examination that they saw him at the hospital after the crash around the time his blood was drawn for the blood-alcohol test. The friends said his speech wasn’t slurred and that he “seemed fine” at that time.

A couple who own the Harrison Marina, where LaPointe kept his boat, said their pontoon boat was tied up to LaPointe’s speedboat until shortly before the crash. Their daughter, Nicole Randall, 20, was in LaPointe’s boat that night in the hour leading up to the crash and at the time of the crash. She and LaPointe swam four-tenths of a mile to shore after they were thrown from his boat.

LaPointe socialized with Kathy and David Randall and their daughter, Nicole, and other friends on the lake for about an hour, they said. LaPointe only had one beer on their boat, the Randalls said. Kathy Randall said she ended up pouring out part of that beer.

When LaPointe left, he appeared to be sober, they said.

“He was absolutely, 100 percent fine or my daughter wouldn’t have been with him,” David Randall said.

Two women testified that they saw a boat with an outboard motor leave the Naples causeway that night shortly before the crash. The unidentified boat had no lights on and passed by their pontoon boat 20 to 30 feet away, surprising them.

“I never saw it coming,” said Cindy Obremski, who has a house in Bridgton.

“I was thinking, ‘My gosh, I hope they put their lights on,'” said Kathleen Hogan, who was on the pontoon boat with Obremski.

Neither woman identified it as Trott’s boat.

A juror dropped out Thursday for medical reasons, the second juror to leave since the trial started. There are 13 jurors now, including one alternate.