AUBURN — A Wales man awaiting trial on a manslaughter charge stemming from a 2012 hunting accident will remain in jail until his trial, likely in June.

Christopher Austin, 43, appeared in Androscoggin County Superior Court on Thursday on a prosecutor’s motion to revoke bail.

Authorities said Austin drank alcohol and shot guns last year in violation of his bail conditions.

Austin was charged with manslaughter and discharging a firearm near a dwelling following a hunting accident on Nov. 20, 2012, in which Gerard Parent of Wales was killed. Austin pleaded not guilty to the charges in 2013. If convicted of manslaughter, Austin faces up to 30 years in prison. 

He had been free on $5,000 cash bail until December, when he was charged with eight counts of gross sexual assault, unrelated to the hunting accident charges.

Assistant Attorney General John Alsop filed a motion to revoke Austin’s bail in the manslaughter case, arguing Austin violated bail conditions by having and using alcohol and firearms “on a regular basis” since an Androscoggin County grand jury handed up the hunting-related charges.

Alsop said Thursday the state wouldn’t seek the forfeiture of Austin’s $5,000 cash bail he had posted since Austin didn’t intend to contest the state’s motion to revoke bail. Alsop said after the court appearance that the two parties had been working toward a possible plea agreement last fall, “but the new information coming to light about the gross bail violations and the new, unrelated sex violations caused us to go back to square one.” That doesn’t rule out the possibility of a new plea agreement before a June trial date, he said.

Alsop cited in his earlier motion to revoke Austin’s bail a sworn affidavit by Game Warden Peter Herring, who wrote that he became aware of the violations from investigators involved in bringing the sexual assault charges against Austin in December.

In the affidavit, Herring wrote that one family member said Austin had been drinking alcohol excessively and carrying several firearms, including rifles and handguns. He said Austin had become so drunk one time during the past summer that he “passed out in a ditch” and had to be taken to the Togus VA Medical Center. The family member said Austin would “do shots” and carry nonalcoholic beer bottles with him in an effort to disguise the fact that he was drinking alcohol. The family member also told Herring that Austin regularly carried a pistol and semiautomatic rifles.

Another family member told Herring that Austin would routinely drink “nippers,” miniature bottles of liquor that he would buy at the South Monmouth Market. He would drink them while working on his guns in his basement, the family member told Herring.

Three workers at the store told Herring that, several times a day, Austin would buy the “nippers,” then pour them into his coffee, which he also bought at the store.

A third family member told Herring that Austin would become drunk at his home and shoot his guns. Once, while inebriated, he stood at the back of his house with the door open, shooting in the backyard, the family member told Herring, according to his affidavit.

When he was initially released on bail, Austin moved his gun collection to his parents’ home, where he would work on the guns and shoot them, a family member said.

At the time of the hunting accident, a six-pack of nonalcoholic beer was fond in the back of Austin’s pickup truck, according to the affidavit. Four hours after the shooting, Austin’s blood-alcohol level was .02 percent. A state chemist estimated that at the time of the shooting, Austin’s blood-alcohol level would have been somewhere between .06 percent and .12 percent, Herring wrote.

A lawsuit alleging wrongful death filed in Androscoggin County Superior Court by the family of the shooting victim is pending.

Austin caused the death “recklessly or with criminal negligence,” according to the indictment. Austin also was charged with discharging his Remington 700, a .308-caliber rifle, within 100 yards of a building or residential building without the property owner’s permission.

According to the Maine Warden Service, Parent and Austin were shooting at the same deer in an area between East Road and Route 126. According to investigators, both were hunting with rifles. A preliminary investigation revealed that Austin fired two shots and Parent fired one. Austin’s second shot struck Parent and killed him, according to Cpl. John MacDonald.

The incident was reported at 4:19 p.m. on Nov. 20, 2012, shortly before the end of the hunting day.

According to the Medical Examiner’s office, Parent died of a gunshot wound to the chest.

At an October hearing, Austin’s attorney, Scott Lynch, argued his client should be allowed to have experts testify at trial who would say that the shooting victim had an elevated level of alcohol in his blood at the time of his death and that he had “negligently placed himself in the direct line of fire.”

Alsop countered with the argument that the legal burden had been on Austin to identify his target before shooting. Alsop said testimony from either witness would be misleading and irrelevant.

cwilliams@sunjournal.com