Lisbon man denied bail after jail escape

LEWISTON — A Lisbon man who escaped from jail Monday had told a female friend a day earlier of his plan and asked her to pick him up, court records show.

David Mockler Androscoggin County Jail photo

In a taped phone call from Androscoggin County Jail, David R. Mockler, 23, had asked his presumed girlfriend to be at the jail waiting for him Monday morning.

But the woman refused, urging him “not to get himself into any further trouble,” according to an affidavit written by Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Detective Michael Mejia.

Mockler told her he would go through with his plan whether she helped him or not.

Shortly after 9:30 a.m., Mockler kicked off his shoes during outdoor recreation period, ran to a fence and scaled it while a corrections officer’s back was turned.

He squeezed through two rows of barbed wire where his pants and underwear got caught and were ripped off, then jumped about 25 feet off the roof of a jail building, the affidavit says.

“It is suspected that he has a fracture to both of his feet as a result of jumping from the roof as well as lacerations he sustained after getting his pants caught in the barbed wire fence,” Mejia wrote.

A county records clerk saw Mockler make the leap without pants and run through an alleyway to Court Street, Mejia wrote.

At the end of the alley, Mockler found and commandeered an unlocked 2019 Toyota Highlander SUV with the keys in it that belonged to a Registry of Deeds clerk.

Mockler then fled in the SUV.

Fewer than 10 minutes later, the SUV he was driving collided with a car on Minot Avenue in Auburn “and put it off the roadway,” Mejia wrote.

A witness reported the license plate number of the SUV as it fled the scene of the crash.

Mockler drove to Minot, where he stopped at the Minot Country Store, according to the witness, who had followed him from the crash scene.

The SUV had sustained damage to its right front-end, its tire punctured. He continued to drive on the bare wheel rim to Mechanic Falls, where a Mechanic Falls police officer pursued him at low speeds with lights and siren.

Mockler didn’t stop.

He eventually turned into the driveway of his ex-girlfriend’s home in Mechanic Falls where the SUV struck an embankment, Mejia wrote.

Authorities then took Mockler into custody.

His ex-girlfriend said she had last talked to him weeks earlier, hadn’t known about his escape plan and didn’t know why he had driven to her home.

Appearing in a videoconference in 8th District Court from a hospital bed Thursday morning at Central Maine Medical Center, Mockler denied he violated the terms of his bail.

Judge Jennifer Archer ordered Mockler be held without bail until a hearing on a motion to revoke his bail is held next month.

Archer set bail on charges stemming from the escape at $250,000.

Those charges include escape, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. He also faces misdemeanor charges of unauthorized use of property and violation of condition of release.

Assistant Attorney General Darcy Mitchell told Judge Archer that Mockler had violated bail conditions twice before the escape, one time walking out of a substance abuse treatment facility after his father dropped him off before disappearing.

A criminal mischief charge was added when he was picked up on a warrant and reportedly damaged a police cruiser earlier this month.

The underlying charges for which he had been jailed and on which he had been awaiting trial include a felony charge of aggravated trafficking of scheduled drugs, a crime punishable by 4-30 years in prison.

Mitchell said an investigation is ongoing and prosecutors believe it’s “very possible” that additional charges will be forthcoming by the time the case is presented to a grand jury for indictment.