Thomas Wentworth waits for his trial to start in Androscoggin County Superior Court in Auburn on Monday morning. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

AUBURN — It took a jury less than an hour on Tuesday to acquit a Durham man of terrorizing and assaulting a tenant, and sexually assaulting a dog.

Thomas Wentworth, 55, nodded in agreement as the jury forewoman conveyed the three “not guilty” verdicts to the judge in Androscoggin County Superior Court.

The five women and seven men reached unanimous decisions on the charges shortly before 1:30 p.m., deliberating without breaking for lunch.

Wentworth was “very pleased with the outcome and is very thankful to the jury,” his attorney, Justin Leary, said after the two-day trial.

“He’s especially pleased because he’s an animal lover. It’s been a part of him and his family’s life forever and to have such a heinous allegation against him was very troubling and he’s very pleased that his good standing in that regard has been restored,” Leary said.

Assistant District Attorney Claire Andrews held a differing view: “Unfortunately, sometimes domestic violence victims are not believed. When things happen to them, they don’t happen in front of other people.”

Andrews was referring to Crystal Mata, a mother who, with her 15-year-old daughter,  rented a small building from Wentworth at his Pinkham Brook Road property. Wentworth lived on the second floor of a barn near the building where Mata stayed.

The charges against Wentworth stemmed from claims Mata made during the time she lived in Wentworth’s outbuilding, drove his vehicle and used his phone. She and Wentworth had a sexual relationship.

Andrews said Tuesday during closing arguments that Mata had been controlled in all aspects of her life by Wentworth.

“This is a case, really, about power,” Andrews said.

By contrast, Leary told the jury that his client was a kind-hearted man who took in Mata and her daughter at a time when no one else would.

Andrews said Mata was in a “very difficult situation,” from which she had tried to extricate herself, succeeding finally at the end of 2016.

Mata accused Wentworth of having pushed her into a vehicle, injuring the backs of her legs. She said he had threatened to kill her. She said she had walked in on him having sex with his black Labrador Retriever.

Andrews had told the jury at the end of the trial that the case would come down to credibility of witnesses.

Mata testified on Monday; Wentworth, Tuesday.

“You have to decide which version you are going to believe,” Andrews said.

She said Mata couldn’t report her allegations to authorities earlier than she did because she had been on probation and hadn’t reported her change of address, which had been a requirement. It wasn’t until she had done that that she felt she could safely report the abuse. If she had violated her probation, the state might try to take custody of her daughter, Andrews said.

She said Wentworth was motivated to lie in his testimony Tuesday because he was facing two felonies and a misdemeanor. Each of the domestic violence charges was punishable by up to five years in prison.

But Leary seized on Mata’s lack of precision in recalling dates of the alleged abuse and the inconsistent statements she gave about the details.

He wondered aloud to the jury why someone who had been assaulted and terrorized would continue to stay with the abuser and would leave her teenage daughter alone at night on his property.

“I would ask you: ‘Does that make sense?'” he said.

“Why not leave sooner?” Leary asked.

Mata had a good-paying job and wasn’t dependent on Wentworth financially,” Leary said.

He said Mata benefited from alleging crimes against Wentworth because they engendered the sympathy of his parents who took her in after she shared her claims of abuse with them.

After the trial, Justice William Stokes ordered Wentworth to serve an additional year of probation because he had violated the terms of his earlier probation on a conviction of domestic violence criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon. He had been sentenced to two years in prison, with all but two months of that time suspended. He had been put on probation for 26 months. Wentworth admitted to violating his probation by having alcohol and for killing his dog in a manner that didn’t cause instantaneous death.

Wentworth told Stokes that he loved his dog and “didn’t want to see it suffer. So I did what I had to do.”

He put ether in a plastic bag and put it over the dog’s head until it was dead.

“I still don’t regret it,” he said. “It was clean … it was painless.”

Stokes, who said Wentworth could have taken the dog to a veterinarian to have it euthanized, ordered that he not own animals for a year and that he be evaluated for substance abuse and get needed treatment. Wentworth must have no contact with Mata.

cwilliams@sunjournal.com

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