The state has dismissed a charge of assault against Ruth Anne Bryant, the President of the Miles Memorial Hospital League (MMHL).
Bryant, 68, of Damariscotta, faced the charge in relation to a June 24 incident in Wiscasset Superior Court between Bryant and Patricia Seelye-Sarver, a volunteer at the MMHL thrift shop in Damariscotta. According to a Wiscasset Superior Court document dated Jan. 24, the state dismissed the case after Bryant “did [a] letter of apology.”
“I’m very pleased that [the charges have] been dismissed,” Bryant said Feb. 1. Bryant referred further inquiries to her attorney, Ron Schneider of Berstein Shur.
“Mrs. Bryant apologized to [Seelye-Sarver] for the words she said that day in court,” Schneider said Feb. 1. “She didn’t apologize for any assault or pinching.”
“There’s no evidence of the assault except the word of [Seelye-Sarver] and her daughter,” Schneider said. “If the matter had gone to trial, we would have won.”
Seelye-Sarver did not return messages left Feb. 1.
According to Schneider, all parties involved agreed a trial would be a waste of time and money and a cause of unnecessary stress.
The prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Andrew Wright, did not return a message left Feb. 1.
A separate, felony charge of tampering with a witness was dropped several months ago, Schneider said. “Mrs. Bryant never told [Seelye-Sarver] not to go” to court, Schneider said.
Seelye-Sarver, in a July 19 interview with The Lincoln County News, said Joy Walker, the manager of the MMHL thrift shop, was relaying a message from the MMHL Board of Directors when Walker told her not to go to court June 24 to testify in the case of a man accused of shoplifting from the thrift shop.
Bryant, as a volunteer, has “devoted a great deal of time and energy to helping the community and helping [Miles Memorial Hospital],” Schneider said. He described the assault case as a “misunderstanding that detracts from the good work [MMHL] does for the community and the hospital.”
