AUBURN – A man sentenced Friday to serve five years in prison for strangling his mother was robbed of his childhood, the judge said.

Androscoggin County Superior Court Justice Joyce Wheeler sentenced 24-year-old Matthew Audet of Lewiston to 15 years in prison with all but five suspended.

Wheeler said she had a vision of Audet as a small boy pedaling his bike down the street to try to stop his father from driving drunk.

“It’s the only glimpse I have that you were a child once and that is very sad because you deserved to have a childhood,” Wheeler said.

Audet had been charged with murder but pleaded guilty to manslaughter, which is punishable by up to 30 years in prison.

Wheeler said the atmosphere of drinking, drugging and violence in which Audet was raised likely led him down the road to homicide.

“This, in my mind, was a tragedy waiting to happen,” she said.

Audet suffered physical, sexual and psychological abuse at the hands of his mother, Debra, the judge said.

She sentenced Audet to six years of probation after his release from prison.

Conditions of his probation include substance abuse counseling, psychological counseling, completion of a batterer’s program and refraining from drug and alcohol possession. He also must reimburse the state’s victim compensation fund $5,000 for funeral expenses, among other things.

No witnesses spoke for the prosecution. Eight people, including family members, teachers, a former girlfriend, a psychologist and a priest, spoke in support of Audet.

Following their testimony, Audet stood and read from handwritten notes on a yellow legal pad. His arms shook and he paused often for deep breaths.

He told the judge: “My mom was my best friend in the world.” But when she was drunk, she became abusive, both verbally and physically, he said. “I love my mother very much, despite the way she treated me in the past.”

Audet said his mother’s intentions were good, but were drowned out by alcohol. “She was cruel. She was mean. She was manipulative.”

“As long as she was sober, she tried to do right by me,” and would attempt to make up for her drunken behavior, he said.

From a young age, Audet was neglected at home, he said. A list of bars and corresponding phone numbers in the family’s apartment were put by the phone in case he needed to track down his parents, he said.

Before he was a teenager, Audet’s mother would retreat from her abusive husband’s rages to Audet’s room, which he had equipped with a lock. That was when she started sexually abusing him, late at night when his father had passed out, he said.

Later, he dropped out of high school to tend to his sick father and grandfather.

Audet said his mother told him he was the reason she drank.

“What a burden,” Wheeler said. “That was probably the worst thing she said.”

‘Abhorrent’ childhood

Audet’s mother would send him on errands on his bike all times of night, including school nights, he said. “Growing up, I really had no idea what normal was.”

The night Audet choked his mother to death, he said he called 911, then started CPR, giving chest compressions. An autopsy revealed several fractured ribs. It also showed a broken hyoid bone in her neck, typical in strangulation.

When police told him his mother was dead, Audet said he had never been so scared in his life. And he had never felt so alone, he said.

“My actions that night were a mistake,” he said. “There’s nothing I can do to take it back.”

Wheeler said Audet showed a rare resilience to his “horrendous” upbringing and could be successful in the future if he overcame his alcoholism and let friends and family help him build a new life for himself.

Charles Robinson, a noted Maine psychologist who has testified at many court hearings, said he had never before spoken in support of a defendant at a sentencing.

He made an exception in Audet’s case.

Robinson said Audet was blessed with a “superior intelligence” but has nearly zero self-esteem.

Audet’s abuse was so extensive, Robinson said the only thing missing was “that he was never tied to a chair and burned with cigarettes.”

He said he believed Audet was truly remorseful and blamed no one else.

A teacher at Androscoggin County Jail said Audet showed a capacity to learn at a “very high level.” He first tested at an eighth-grade level in math, said Noel Plourde. After months of study, he tested higher than 12th grade and was tackling algebra 2 and trigonometry, she said.

“I think in many ways this is a beginning for Matt,” she said.

Even with his promising intellect and “forced” sobriety, Audet faces many challenges, Justice Wheeler said.

“You do have a lot more tough times in front of you,” she said. She included a lengthy period of probation to ensure Audet didn’t backslide on his drinking problem.

She didn’t want to diminish Audet’s actions.

“You put your hands on your mother’s neck and choked her until she died,” Wheeler said. Audet was abused by alcoholics, she said. And “you became an abusive alcoholic.” Audet abused his wife, who left him. And he abused his mother, breaking her wrist once.

When he killed his mother, Audet’s blood-alcohol level was 0.2 percent, Wheeler said. His mother’s level was 0.3 percent.

Wheeler said there was irony in Audet’s criminal behavior. “It may only be through the death of your mother that real change can come to you,” Wheeler said.

Assistant Attorney General Lisa Marchese, who prosecuted the case, referred to Audet’s past in a court memo as “one of the most abhorrent childhoods one can imagine,” Wheeler said.

But Marchese, who recommended an 18-year sentence with all but 10 years suspended, said she was in court to speak for the victim.

“She was a human being. She didn’t deserve to die,” Marchese said. “Nothing about his upbringing justified his killing his mother.”

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