LEWISTON — A Livermore man was sentenced Friday, seven months after his his 3-year-old daughter was found wandering naked along Route 4.

Kerry Joseph Ross, 40, of 1695 Federal Road was sentenced in 8th District Court to six months on a misdemeanor charge of endangering the welfare of a child.

He agreed to a felony plea on a charge of possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and received a two-year sentence.

The sentences will be served at the same time.

Ross entered an Alford plea Friday to the two charges, which means he didn’t contest the charges, but declined to make an admission of guilt.

His attorney, George Hess, explained that he was able to negotiate the structuring of Ross’ sentencing in such a way that his client will serve his time in prison for these two crimes at the same time that he will already be serving two years for two drug trafficking crimes to which he pleaded guilty on Wednesday in a Cumberland County court.

Hess said his client didn’t want to risk the possibility of back-to-back sentences had he gone to trial on the charges brought in the Lewiston court and been convicted, though he disputes much of a prosecutor’s narrative of events.

Ross has served more than 200 days in jail awaiting trial. That time will be factored into the remaining time he must serve in prison, a judge said. 

Charges of drug trafficking, obstructing government administration and violation of condition of release were dropped Friday.

A neighbor had called the Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Department midmorning on Nov. 14 after she discovered Ross’ daughter walking in Livermore along Route 4, which is also Federal Road, with no clothes. Temperatures were reported to be in the 40-degree range. Several people had stopped to assist the neighbor, who said there was no sign of the girl’s parents or supervising adult, according to court papers.

The neighbor told authorities she had “seen the girl in the past in the company of a male who was dragging her down the road,” Assistant District Attorney Kate Bozeman told Judge Rick Lawrence Friday.

The home of Ross’ father, Wendall, was near where the girl was found.

The neighbor wrapped the girl in a blanket and waited for authorities, who called the Maine Department of Health and Human Services. The girl and her 19-month-old brother were evaluated at St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Lewiston, according to court papers.

Wendell Ross told authorities that Ross and his girlfriend, Courtney Abbott, 22, lived upstairs sometimes with their two children.

Hess said his client denied having lived there and only dropped off his children at his father’s home to be looked after when he and Abbott went to Lewiston for methadone treatments.

Sheriff’s deputies wrote in affidavits that Wendall Ross allowed them upstairs in the home, where authorities discovered the toddler in a dirty playpen wearing a soiled diaper.

Bozeman said Friday the living area was “a mess with feces all around and food and other items scattered. There (was) evidence of drugs and a firearm found.”

Armed with a warrant, authorities returned and searched the home, seizing drugs and a loaded gun, Bozeman said.

Both Kerry Ross and Abbott were convicted felons, prohibited from having firearms, Bozeman said.

Ross’ father told authorities at the November visit that Abbott was supposed to be looking after the children, according to court records.

The elder Ross had told sheriff’s deputies that he hardly ever went upstairs because of a bad leg. Deputies found a bedroom at the end of the second-floor hallway where Kerry Ross apparently slept. Next to a bed was a loaded shotgun in the room with a crib, a sergeant wrote in a sworn statement. Shotgun shells and bullets were scattered on the top of a bureau, he wrote.

A deputy ejected a live shell from the barrel of the gun. Wendall Ross identified the gun as his and indicated he didn’t know it had been upstairs in the bedroom. He said his son sometimes asks Abbott to stay with the kids if he has an appointment, but she was “on the run,” according to the affidavit in court papers. He said his son had custody of the children.

Abbott couldn’t be located right away, but was later found hiding in an attached barn.

Executing a search warrant, authorities found 32 jars of harvested marijuana in the upstairs bedroom along with a silver case with prescription pills. Assorted knives were scattered about on the floor and shelves within reach of children, a sergeant wrote, according to court papers. A steak knife was found stuck in the hallway wall.

In one room, a cushion had been set up in the corner and appeared to be the bed of the 3-year-old girl, according to the sergeant’s sworn statement. Deputies also found evidence of a marijuana grow operation and packages of cigarettes in there.

Abbott spoke with a deputy after she was read her rights. She said she had gone to the clinic in Lewiston with Ross at 8:45 a.m. Saturday. She had left the boy in his “pack and play” in the upstairs bedroom and her daughter in a highchair, in a back room upstairs.

Abbott pleaded guilty earlier this year to the same charges as Ross — possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and endangering the welfare of a child — but hasn’t been sentenced.

cwilliams@sunjournal.com