ROCKLAND — A Maine State Prison inmate who stabbed another prisoner 87 times pleaded guilty to murder Monday under a plea agreement in which prosecutors dropped other charges.

Richard Stahursky’s plea came as jury selection was due to get underway in Superior Court in Knox Count. Under the agreement, charges of trafficking in prison contraband and attempted murder of a corrections officer were dismissed, helping Stahursky’s bid to be transferred to an out-of-state prison, said his lawyer, Philip Cohen.

The judge didn’t immediately set a sentencing date.

Stahursky, who had planned to use an insanity defense, was charged in the fatal attack on 37-year-old Micah Boland in the Maine State Prison in Warren. He told investigators he was angry that Boland had ratted on him and caused him to lose a prison job as a hallway monitor. He used two makeshift knives in the attack.

Stahursky admitted to state police after the February 2014 stabbing that he was guilty and that he might have overreacted, saying, “I get stupid sometimes when I have a knife in my hand,” according to a state police affidavit. He also said he had stopped taking medication to stabilize his mood.

Stahursky, who was originally sentenced to nearly 20 years for armed robbery, has been in trouble several times at the prison. He was previously convicted of two separate inmate stabbings, of assaulting a corrections officer and of setting a fire there.


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