BANGOR (AP) – A Superior Court judge sentenced an Etna man to the maximum allowed for drunken driving, calling him a “hazard to society” because of his repeated offenses.

Jeffrey Harvey, 44, was convicted in June of aggravated operating under the influence of intoxicants in connection with a motorcycle-car accident on June 11, 2004, that seriously injured Barri Babcock, 35, of Carmel.

At Harvey’s sentencing on Friday, Justice Andrew Mead sentenced him to five years for the drunken driving conviction, with an additional six months for operating after the suspension of his license in connection with the accident.

Harvey’s driver’s license was suspended for six years, and he was ordered to pay a $2,000 fine and $15,000 in restitution.

Mead said that the impact of Harvey’s actions have been “profound” on the victim, and that there is a high risk that Harvey will be repeat offender.

“To protect society, we need to remove the defendant from society,” Mead said.

Harvey had prior drunken driving convictions in 1987, 1992 and 1996, said Greg Campbell, assistant district attorney for Penobscot County.

In 1987, he was sentenced to 11 months in jail, one month shy of the maximum sentence, after he was convicted for drunken driving in connection with a 1986 accident in which four people from the same Lincoln family were killed. Harvey was found not guilty the following year of four counts of manslaughter in that accident.

At Friday’s hearing, Babcock’s wife, Heather, urged Mead to impose the maximum sentence.

“I ask you to protect our community,” she said. “He had his chance to turn his life around. Instead, he almost took another life, my husband’s. How many lives must we sacrifice?

“One of these accidents took place one mile from my house in one direction and, my husband’s, a mile from my home in the other direction,” she continued. “Will it be my two kids going to the mailbox the next time?”

Harvey’s attorney, James Beardsley, asked Mead to impose a two-year sentence. He said that his client has been sober for four months and had to care for an infant daughter.

Harvey apologized in court and said he was working to get sober.

Campbell described Harvey as “a man who has thumbed his nose at the law” because of his extensive criminal record and the fact that he has continued to drive despite numerous license suspensions and revocations.

Beardsley said he would appeal the sentence to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.