NEWPORT, Maine — A Stetson man has been arrested on multiple charges after reportedly refusing to pull over for a Penobscot County sheriff’s deputy, ditching the car he was driving and breaking into a Newport apartment, where he hid until he was tracked down by a state police dog.
After his arrest on Wednesday, Chad Michael Charters, 23, was taken to Penobscot County Jail in Bangor, where he was being held Friday on charges of driving after license revocation, eluding an officer and criminal trespass, a jail official confirmed Friday night.
Penobscot County Deputy Garrit McKee said Friday that he first spotted Charters driving his girlfriend’s car in the southbound lanes of Interstate 95 and, aware that Charters lacked a valid driver’s license, he attempted to pull him over.
McKee said he turned on his blue lights but that instead of stopping, Charters accelerated. McKee continued to follow Charters as he left the highway in Plymouth and turned onto Ridge Road, where Charters almost lost control of the car because of poor road conditions. At that point, McKee said, he abandoned his pursuit and watched as Charters turned off onto a side street, where he left the car and fled on foot.
McKee then called for assistance. Maine State Police Trooper Bernard Brunette and his dog, Lut, Newport Police Chief Leonard Macdaid and Detective Franklin Jennings of the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Department turned up.
With Lut’s help, the officers tracked Charters’ scent to an apartment building off Elm Street in Newport, about half a mile from where he abandoned the car, McKee said. The renter was not home at the time.
“He was hiding under a tarp,” McKee said.
Charters has a fairly extensive criminal history dating back at least four years.
During a stay at the Penobscot County lockup in June 2007, Charters caused some tense moments for jail officials when he attempted to hang himself with a bedsheet in his cell while awaiting trial for burglary and theft. The next day, after undergoing treatment at a local hospital, Charters was returned to the jail.