MEXICO — A former New England
wrestling champion with six convictions for drunken driving led
police on a half-mile foot-chase Thursday afternoon before being
zapped with a Taser while resisting arrest, Patrolman Keith
Tilsley said.

Timothy L. Gotto, 49, of Mexico, who
had a blood-alcohol level of 0.18, was charged with violating conditions of bail and
refusing to submit to arrest, Tilsley said.

Because bail was denied, Tilsley drove
Gotto to the Oxford County Jail in Paris where Gotto will be arraigned in the near future.

Tilsley said the incident began at
about 2:30 p.m. when he responded to a complaint that Gotto was
pounding on a door at his parents’ home at 39
Roxbury Ave, where he was staying.

When Tilsley arrived to investigate, Gotto was sitting in the passenger seat of a parked pickup
truck with another man in the driver’s seat, the officer said.

“I smelled alcohol coming from him
and when I went to verify if he had bail conditions, he got out of
the truck and took off running through backyards on Kimball Avenue,
Middle Street and Osgood Avenue,” said Tilsley, who ran after him
while calling for help on his radio.

Tilsley said Gotto had two sets of bail
conditions from other counties. The conditions included not
drinking alcohol and being subject to random
searches and testing for alcohol.

Rumford Patrolman Donald Miller,
Dixfield Sgt. Jeffrey Howe and Oxford County Sheriff’s Corp. Justin
Brown responded to Tilsley’s call for help.

“He was jumping over fences and
running through backyards, but once he realized other officers were
arriving, he hid beside a portable garage and fence at Osgood Avenue
near Oak Street,” Tilsley said.

Brown found Gotto and hit him with  a Taser as he
was about to resist after the 10-minute pursuit, Tilsley said.

“He was pretty well done after that
and cooperated fully,” Tilsley said.

Among Gotto’s criminal history records
are  six OUI convictions, two assault convictions and one terrorizing conviction for threatening to kill a deputy sheriff in 2004. Convictions in 2008 include theft of a snowmobile, reckless operation of a snowmobile and
operating a snowmobile to endanger.

Gotto grew up in Mexico and transferred
to Rumford High School in 1978 when he won state championships in
wrestling, according to newspaper accounts. He posted a 38-0 record
and won the New England Wrestling Championship that year.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com