Arthur Bush, center, looks away as prosecutor Andrew Matulis, left, details the evidence he would have presented had the case against Bush gone to trial. At far right is Bush’s lawyer, Adam Sherman. Bush pleaded guilty; he is to be sentenced in 60 days.
AUBURN — A Lewiston man pleaded guilty Tuesday morning at Androscoggin County Superior Court to robbing an upscale wine shop on Lisbon Street and severely beating the clerk with wine bottles.
Arthur Bush, 46, of 45 Shawmut St., was arrested July 26, 2016, and charged with a single count of Class A robbery and two counts of Class B aggravated assault.
The robbery charge is punishable by up to 30 years in prison, while the aggravated assault charge is punishable by up to 10 years.
Bush pleaded not guilty to each of the charges during a September hearing at 8th District Court in Lewiston.
However, he accepted a plea agreement in which the state dropped one of the aggravated assault charges.
Assistant District Attorney Andrew Matulis said a 60-day delay was requested for Bush’s sentencing.
If the case had gone to trial, Matulis told Superior Court Justice William Stokes, he would have called several witnesses, including Officer Joey Brown with the Lewiston Police Department.
According to police, two customers found Lisa Goundie, 57, in The Vault, coming out of a bathroom “covered in blood and hysterical.”
Goundie was rushed to Central Maine Medical Center for surgery after the customers treated her open wounds and called 911.
Matulis told Stokes that he would have also called Detective David Levesque with the Lewiston Police Department to testify.
Levesque wrote in an affidavit that Goundie told police she was selling her assailant, later identified by police as Bush, three bottles of wine when he attacked her, hitting her in the head with one of the bottles.
When she was on the floor, he stepped or knelt on her neck, saying he was “going to kill her,” Levesque wrote.
After the attack, he dragged her into the bathroom as she begged for her life, she told police. She managed to lock the bathroom door and grabbed a bottle of bleach, which she intended to splash in the man’s face if he were to return.
She described him as being in his 40s, having no teeth and wearing a dark-colored T-shirt.
Levesque wrote that Bush failed to open the cash register and stole $4 from the clerk’s wallet before fleeing. He later used the stolen cash to buy cigarettes.
The following Monday, after a photo of the suspect was released, a member of his family called police to identify Bush from the surveillance photos. At the same time, police were interviewing Bush at Pine and Horton streets, Levesque wrote.
Bush told the officer he had to turn himself in, then confessed to the assault. He said he took $4 from Goundie’s purse and owed $200 to a drug dealer for his addiction.
Matulis said he would have called a fingerprint examiner with the State of Maine Crime Lab to testify that the fingerprints found on the wine bottles used to attack Goundie “matched to a sufficient degree of certainty” the fingerprints taken from Bush following his arrest.
He also would have called another crime lab employee to testify that the blood found on Bush’s clothing matched Goundie’s blood.
Stokes said Bush would be held without bail until his sentencing.
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