MACHIAS, Maine (AP) – A former Maine sheriff has been arrested after allegedly holding a family at gunpoint in a blueberry barrens near Columbia Falls.

Sixty-one-year-old Joseph Tibbetts, a retired state trooper, former Washington County sheriff and former state representative, was arrested Monday night. He was charged with criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon and with threatening display of a weapon. He’s been released on $5,000 bail.

The Bangor Daily News reports the investigation began on Aug. 13. An Addison family called 911 to report that a man who identified himself as Tibbetts, and whom one of the victims recognized as a previous employer, had threatened them and held them at gunpoint when they were visiting the barrens to spot bears.