PARIS — A local man arrested in June after a dispute over hamburger led to a rampage with his truck has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges. 

Dale Bennett, formerly of Hill Street, is accused of ramming his truck into his girlfriend’s vehicle, plowing her friend’s Audi into a ditch and smashing into a third vehicle, which hit and bruised a 13-year-old girl. 

In Oxford County Unified Court on Friday, the 32-year-old Bennett entered not-guilty pleas to a seven-count indictment handed up by an Oxford County grand jury the day before. 

Bennett, who is living in Buckfield, was granted telephone contact with one of the victims named in a police report, but a judge denied his lawyer’s request to allow the parties to meet in person.

Police arrested Bennett in June after they say he turned his vehicle into a weapon, smashing into several vehicles at a Hill Street residence and terrorizing his girlfriend and her family, who were forced to flee and hide behind a tree for safety. 

Witnesses said the dispute was sparked when Bennett, whom they said had been drinking throughout the day, got upset over the choice of hamburger purchased at the Save-A-Lot grocery store in Paris. 

Bennett is charged with aggravated assault, criminal mischief, reckless conduct and felony operating under the influence because of two prior convictions. He is also charged with misdemeanors of domestic violence terrorizing, leaving the scene of an accident and driving to endanger. 

He is scheduled to appear in court on Sept. 29.

ccrosby@sunjournal.com

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