BANGOR, Maine — The two men who attacked the wrong guest with a bat and a hammer at a Bangor hotel in April were sentenced Thursday in Penobscot County Superior Court to spend more than a decade each in prison.
Christopher Brown, 32, of Brewer was sentenced to 20 years in prison with all but 13 suspended and Edward Record, 31, of Bucksport was sentenced to 18 years with all but 12 suspended on charges of robbery, aggravated assault and burglary. The men pleaded guilty to the charges earlier this year.
They allegedly were looking for drugs.
Brown also was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay a $400 fine after pleading guilty to three counts of unlawful trafficking of scheduled drugs and unlawful possession of scheduled drugs stemming from an unrelated incident. The sentences are to be served consecutively.
Brown and Record faced up to 30 years in prison and fines of up to $50,000 on the robbery charge alone.
Because Brown was on bail for the drug charges when the attack occurred he was ordered to serve a longer sentence, Penobscot County Superior Court Justice John Nivison said Thursday.
Both men also were sentenced to three years of probation after their release. Brown and Record also were ordered to pay more than $9,300 in restitution to the Victim’s Witness Fund to reimburse it for money paid out to their victim. Each would be responsible for half that amount. Brown also was ordered to pay more $1,240 in restitution on the drug charges.
Wearing ski masks, Brown and Record went the wrong room at the Riverview Motel and efficiency apartments on State Street in Bangor. When the victim began to open it, they forced their way inside, according to Bangor police.
The victim, William Chan, 37, of Virginia Beach, Va., was staying at the motel while working on a natural gas project in Brewer.
“I fought for my life,” he told the Bangor Daily News the day after the attack, blood still seeping from his head wound. “The guy with the bat hit me so hard the bat actually broke in half.”
He told the judge Thursday that because he had spent three years working in Iraq, he thought the men were terrorists out to kill him.