A Boothbay man with a lengthy criminal history has been sentenced to three years in prison and three years of probation after reaching a plea deal in connection with a home invasion on Barter’s Island nearly 2½ years ago.
Michael L. “Mike” Brewer, 59, pleaded guilty to class B burglary Tuesday, Aug. 25 in exchange for the state’s dismissal of a class A robbery charge, according to District Attorney Geoff Rushlau. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison with all but three years suspended, plus three years of probation.
If Brewer violates probation, he could return to prison for as long as seven years, the remainder of the 10-year sentence.
The sides reached the plea agreement on the first day of what was scheduled to be a three-day trial.
Brewer will receive credit for time served, which means he has already completed more than a year of his sentence. He has been in jail since July 31, 2014, when a judge revoked his bail after three arrests in six months for alcohol-related bail violations.
The robbery and burglary charges stem from a home invasion on Barter’s Island in Boothbay March 17, 2013.
According to a report by Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office Detective Terry Michaud, three individuals were involved in the incident.
Two of the individuals allegedly assaulted a male homeowner and threatened to “blow his head off” unless he opened a safe, while one “held something to his head,” although it was not clear whether the man actually had a gun, according to the report. The men took money from the safe, assaulted the man again, and fled.
Detective Sgt. Ronald Rollins and Michaud investigated. An ex-girlfriend of Brewer’s and ex-housekeeper for the homeowners linked Brewer to the case, as did a man who said Brewer had asked him to help steal a safe on Barter’s Island.
The Maine State Police Crime Laboratory then matched DNA from a hat found in the driveway the night of the robbery to Brewer. Rollins arrested Brewer in Boothbay April 4, 2½ weeks after the robbery.
Brewer was the only person charged in the robbery. “We have been unable to positively identify either of the other two individuals,” Assistant District Attorney Andrew Wright said in June 2014.
Brewer’s criminal history includes several violent crimes and spans his entire adult life – more than 40 years since an arrest and subsequent conviction for resisting apprehension in 1973.
His rap sheet includes a 1988 conviction for attempted murder for the beating of a woman on the Boothbay Harbor footbridge, for which Brewer would receive a 20-year prison sentence. The woman had implicated Brewer in a theft.
“I think it’s common knowledge that Michael Brewer is typically referred to as the person with the longest criminal record in Lincoln County,” Wright said last June.
The class A robbery charge carried a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison, and Wright had said “something close to, if not the maximum sentence would be appropriate” for Brewer. Wright has since left the D.A.’s office to open a private practice.
