A Boothbay Harbor man will serve seven years in prison for a 2012-2013 burglary spree in Lincoln and Sagadahoc counties.
Ronald G. Fuller, 65, of 57 Crest Ave., will start the sentence as soon as he completes a 64-month sentence in federal prison for stealing a car and violating his probation. His federal release date is Nov. 30, 2017, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
From January 2012 to March 2013, Fuller burglarized three businesses and 20 residences in Boothbay, Boothbay Harbor, Edgecomb, Southport, and Woolwich. He burglarized seven Boothbay residences on one day, Oct. 25, 2012.
Fuller pleaded guilty or no contest to 63 counts of burglary, theft, and related crimes during a nearly two-hour sentence hearing in Lincoln County Superior Court Friday, April 10. He committed 59 of the 63 crimes in Lincoln County.
Fuller would often steal cash and jewelry, according to court documents, but would also take other items of value and even items of little apparent value.
The indictments list binoculars, cameras, cash, coins, a compass, furniture, guitars, knives, pottery, a purse, a signal cannon, silverware, sunglasses, and tools among the items. Other items include bags, a bar towel, belts, bottles, bus tokens, a cup, doorknobs, an incense holder, kaleidoscopes, marbles, a model ship-in-a-bottle, a pen, and a whistle.
The Boothbay Harbor Police Department started investigating Fuller’s connection to area burglaries the night of Jan. 21, 2013, after receiving a report of suspicious activity at Boothbay Region Greenhouses.
Sgt. Patrick Higgins and Officer Jared Mitkus tracked a man away from the business and around Boothbay Harbor on foot, following his bootprints in the snow.
The pursuit ended at a driveway where someone had swept the tracks away. Fuller’s Ford Explorer was among the vehicles in the driveway.
Fuller had dropped a backpack during the pursuit. The department collected DNA samples from items in the backpack.
The Maine State Police Crime Laboratory matched the DNA with DNA from an ax handle and crowbar used in a December 2012 burglary of the late Norma Scopino’s Woolwich home. Scopino was the longtime proprietor of the Montsweag Flea Market.
The laboratory eventually matched the DNA to Fuller through the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Combined DNA Index System.
The Boothbay Harbor Police Department and U.S. probation officers searched Fuller’s home March 26, 2013 and searched his brother’s residence, where Fuller stored items in the basement, March 27.
The authorities seized many items from “high-value” burglaries in the area during the searches, according to a March 29 press release from the Boothbay Harbor Police Department.
Fuller walked away from his home during the March 26 search, however.
On April 8, he stole a 1971 Chevrolet Malibu from a Woolwich man and fled the state. Sheriff’s deputies in Missouri’s St. Francois County arrested Fuller at a campsite in the woods off a state highway April 10.
The deputies “recovered a large amount of cash and jewelry at the campsite,” according to an April 11 press release from the St. Francois County Sheriff’s Department.
Fuller pleaded guilty to the federal charges in U.S. District Court in Portland Nov. 8, 2013, according to court records. He was sentenced to five years and four months in prison for those charges Feb. 18, 2014.
Fuller has a long criminal history, with felony convictions for assault and battery in 1968, breaking and entering with intent to commit larceny in 1973, burglary in 1975, robbery in 1986, and possession of firearms and ammunition by a felon in 1998.
The 59 counts against Fuller in Lincoln County included 21 counts of class B and C burglary; 22 counts of class B, C, D, and E theft by unauthorized taking; 14 counts of class D criminal mischief, and one count each of class C aggravated criminal mischief and class D possession of burglary tools.
The four counts against Fuller in Sagadahoc County include one count each of class B and C burglary and two counts of class B theft by unauthorized taking.
The maximum penalties for class B, C, D, and E crimes in Maine are 10 years in prison, five years in prison, 364 days in jail, and six months in jail, respectively.
Fuller pleaded guilty to all the counts except burglary, criminal mischief, and theft charges in connection with the burglary of Boothbay Harbor’s Gold/Smith Gallery Sept. 19, 2012, and a charge of stealing a gun from a Boothbay home Oct. 25, 2012.
Fuller pleaded no contest to those charges. A civil case against Fuller is pending in the Gold/Smith Gallery case. He told the court he did not take any firearms.
Justice Daniel Billings sentenced Fuller to 10 years in prison with three years suspended and three years of probation on count one of the Lincoln County indictment with concurrent sentences of five years for each of the 33 other felony counts and six months for each of the 25 misdemeanor counts.
Fuller received a consecutive sentence of a fully suspended 10 years and three years of probation for two of the Sagadahoc County counts and concurrent sentences of five years each for the other two.
The effect of the sentence is an initial seven years in prison. After his release, he will serve six years of probation. If he violates probation, he could return to prison for the remainder of the consecutive 10-year sentences – up to 13 more years.
His probation conditions prohibit contact with the victims, prohibit the possession of burglary tools and dangerous weapons, subject him to random searches, and require him to pay $13,675 in restitution.
The Lincoln County News will update this post.
