PARIS — Bail was set at $5,000 in Rumford District Court on Monday for a Florida man accused of sexually abusing a teenage girl in June.

If convicted, Michael Shane Rowe, 33, of Christmas, Florida, would face up to five years in prison and possibly a fine of up to $5,000.

Rowe was arrested recently in Florida and booked at the Oxford County Jail in Paris on Saturday, according to a corrections officer at the jail. Rowe was transported to Two Bridges Jail in Wiscasset to await his next court appearance.

Conditions of release include not using or possessing any alcoholic beverages, being subject to random searches and having no direct or indirect contact with his accuser.

Dixfield Police Chief Jeffrey Howe wrote in an affidavit that on June 23, a 15-year-old girl came to the Rumford police station to report she was the victim of a sexual assault.

She told Rumford officer Eric Bernier that in May, Rowe was staying at her family’s home in Dixfield when he raped her. The girl told Bernier that she hit and bit him during the assault.

She said there were several other incidents in which Rowe inappropriately touched her, or made her feel uncomfortable in her own home while her mother was at work.

The girl’s mother told Howe that she recalled seeing a “large bruised area on the front of (Rowe’s) shoulder.”

Howe wrote in the affidavit that Rowe continued to stay at the family’s home, on and off, for “a few weeks,” and then “left to Berlin, New Hampshire.”

“I (was) familiar with Rowe and his sister from when they lived and grew up in Dixfield years ago, and I have investigated Rowe for many cases, including gross sexual assault,” Howe wrote. “I made contact with Berlin police in New Hampshire, and they were able to confirm a visual identification of Michael Rowe at his sister’s residence on June 29.”

However, shortly after, Rowe left for Florida.

Howe wrote that the girl’s mother said Rowe “claimed to be going to Florida to make a court date.”

mdaigle@sunmediagroup.net

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