AUBURN — A Lisbon man who escaped from the Androscoggin County Jail, stole a vehicle and ran a car off the road admitted Tuesday to more than a dozen related crimes and was ordered to serve five years of a 10-year sentence.
David Mockler Androscoggin County Jail photo
David R. Mockler, 24, appeared in Androscoggin County Superior Court by videoconference from the jail from which he escaped nearly a year ago.
In an agreement with prosecutors, Mockler pleaded guilty to 13 charges, including six felonies stemming from his jail escape May 23, 2022.
He also pleaded guilty Tuesday to a charge of aggravated trafficking in scheduled drugs, a crime punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
Justice Harold Stewart II sentenced Mockler to 10 years, but suspended five years of that sentence, meaning if Mockler were to violate the terms of his probation during the four years immediately after his release from prison, he could be ordered to serve part or all of his suspended sentence.
Mockler will serve sentences on all of the jail escape-related charges at the same time as his drug sentence.
Conditions of his probation include no use or possession of firearms nor illegal drugs for which he can be searched and tested at random.
Mockler must undergo substance abuse and mental health evaluations and engage in any prescribed treatment.
He may not operate a motor vehicle, all-terrain vehicle or snowmobile unless lawfully licensed, Stewart said.
During Mockler’s escape, he stole an SUV parked nearby and forced a car off an Auburn street as he fled the scene, driving erratically, prosecutors said.
Stewart said Mockler may have no contact with the owner of the SUV he stole nor with the driver and passengers whose car he forced off the local road.
He was ordered to pay roughly $2,500 in restitution to those four people, three of whom sustained injuries when their car slammed into a utility pole. One of the passengers was an 84-year-old woman who was hospitalized with fractured ribs and a punctured lung.
Prosecutors said Mockler had been in jail before his escape on drug charges stemming from his arrest on March 17, 2022, when Lewiston police responded to a report of a man slumped in a car parked outside a store to check on his well-being.
Mockler was found asleep with what appeared to be a marijuana pipe in his lap and told police he was waiting for his girlfriend.
Police noticed other drug paraphernalia in the car and searched it, discovering 35 grams of a heroin and fentanyl mixture and more than three grams of crack cocaine. They also confiscated $2,430 in cash that Mockler forfeited Tuesday, prosecutors said.
Mockler also pleaded guilty Tuesday to three unrelated misdemeanor charges.
Prosecutors said Mockler had asked his girlfriend during a call from jail a day before his escape to meet him the next morning outside the jail to give him a ride. She refused and urged him not to get into trouble.
That morning, Mockler kicked off his shoes during outdoor recreation period, ran to a fence and scaled it while a corrections officer’s back was turned, prosecutors said.
Mockler 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.
He found and commandeered an unlocked SUV with the keys in it that belonged to a county worker, fleeing the scene.
Fewer than 10 minutes later, the SUV he was driving collided with a car on Minot Avenue in Auburn, running it off the road and into a utility pole, prosecutors said.
Mockler drove to Minot in the SUV that had sustained damage to its right front, 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, according to prosecutors.
Authorities took Mockler into custody.
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