A Boothbay man pleaded guilty Feb. 3 to an assault in which he fractured two of an emergency medical worker’s ribs as the worker was trying to care for the man last May.
William Spear, 49, pleaded guilty in Lincoln County Superior Court to charges of assault on an emergency medical care provider, class C, criminal operating under the influence, class D, and refusing to submit to arrest, class D.
For the OUI, Spear was sentenced to 14 days in jail, a $500 fine, and a 150-day loss of license.
The sentencing for the other two charges was deferred for 12 months, but under a plea agreement, the defense and prosecution will argue whether Spear should serve between 14 and 90 days as the unsuspended portion of a 2.5-year prison sentence for the assault, followed by two years of probation.
Under his plea agreement, Spear would serve a straight sentence for the refusing to submit to arrest charge concurrently with the sentence for the assault, said Assistant District Attorney Jonathan Liberman.
Over the 12-month continuance, Spear will be required to continue substance abuse counseling, will be prohibited from use or possession of illegal drugs or alcohol and be subject to random searches and testing for such, and be prohibited from contact with the victim of the assault.
If Spear fails to meet those conditions, he will be subject to an open plea, meaning he could be sentenced up to the maximum of five years in prison for the felony assault.
The continuance will allow Spear to both continue his substance abuse counseling and avoid automatically losing his job, according to Liberman.
The charges against Spear stem from an incident on May 26, 2014, where he drove to a woman’s house and allegedly pushed her, falling to the ground himself, according to an affidavit by Boothbay Harbor Police Sgt. Patrick Higgins.
Spear was incoherent when Higgins arrived at the home, and “picked up [nasal] spray and tried dialing it and talking into it,” Higgins said.
Higgins left Spear with emergency medical personnel to perform a consent search on Spear’s vehicle, and when he returned he found emergency medical provider John Malcolm holding his side and the other provider holding down the defendant, Liberman said at the hearing Feb. 3.
Spear had flipped Malcolm over his hip onto the arm of a couch, fracturing two of his ribs, Liberman said.
An aggravated assault charge against Spear was dismissed, according to Liberman, because the other assault charge is also a felony and because it does not require the state to prove Malcolm sustained “serious bodily injury,” as is required by the aggravated assault statute.
“What we have are two fractured ribs, and I think if we went to trial we would have been able to prove serious bodily injury,” Liberman said. “But, the assault on a medical care provider is also a felony charge and all we have to prove in that case is he caused bodily injury to a medical care provider, and the extent of those injuries aren’t relevant to the charge.”
The aggravated assault charge was also not one Spear was originally charged with, and was added during the prosecution’s presentation of the case before a grand jury, Liberman said.
A misdemeanor domestic violence assault charge against Spear was also dismissed.
The alleged victim of the domestic violence assault “wanted that dismissed from very early on in the case,” according to Liberman.
A call to Edward Dardis, Spear’s attorney, for comment was not returned by press time.