AUBURN — A Lewiston man charged with stabbing a man and threatening another with a gun in two separate incidents last year agreed Tuesday to allow a judge to find him guilty in both cases.
Stephen C. Gurney appears Tuesday via videoconference from the Androscoggin County Jail in Auburn. Screenshot from video
Stephen C. Gurney, 35, of 54 Blake St., Lewiston, was sentenced to 3½ years in prison on a charge of aggravated assault stemming from the stabbing of Rocky Creamer, 43, of Lewiston on Pierce Street in March 2020, according to Assistant District Attorney Neil McLean. The wound required surgery, he said.
Gurney also was sentenced to three years apiece on three felony charges, including criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon, stemming from a May 2020 incident during which McLean said Gurney had brandished a handgun and threatened Michael Lagasse at his Lewiston apartment.
Gurney’s girlfriend had stayed at Lagasse’s apartment the night before the incident because she said she had been afraid of Gurney, but returned to Lagasse’s apartment the next day to collect some of her clothes, police said.
Lagasse refused to let her in because he thought she had stolen some of his things, but said he would get her clothes for her. She left, then came back with Gurney, who forced his way into Lagasse’s apartment, McLean said Tuesday.
Once in the apartment, Gurney waved around a small silver and white handgun and racked its slide to load it. Lagasse defended himself with a 2-foot long “machete-type knife” and struck Gurney’s arm twice with it, police wrote in an affidavit.
After Gurney and his girlfriend left the apartment, Lagasse picked up Gurney’s gun and tossed it into a nearby backpack, where he later told police they would find it.
Several witnesses corroborated Lagasse’s story.
Gurney appeared Tuesday in Androscoggin County Superior Court from the Androscoggin County Jail via videoconference.
He entered Alford pleas to the charges in both cases, which means he entered guilty pleas because he believed a judge or jury could find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt were the cases to go to trial, but denies having committed the underlying criminal conduct.
Gurney has served more than 500 days in jail since his arrest last year. That time will be put toward his sentence, the judge said.
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