BANGOR, Maine — The South Dakota man charged with slaying and setting ablaze a local homeless man camping along the Kenduskeag stream six years ago is scheduled to plead guilty to manslaughter at 10:30 a.m. Friday at the Penobscot Judicial Center.
In exchange for his guilty plea, the prosecution and defense will recommend that Kenneth John Bruning be sentenced to 15 years in prison, with all but seven suspended, and four years of probation, according to defense attorney Jeffrey Silverstein of Bangor.
In addition, the murder charge against Bruning, 26, of Rapid City, S.D., is expected to be dismissed.
Silverstein said earlier this week that Bruning will enter a so-called Alford plea. An Alford plea, named for the U.S. Supreme Court case North Carolina vs. Alford and decided in 1970, is “a guilty plea that a defendant enters as part of a plea bargain, without actually admitting guilt,” according to Black’s Law Dictionary.
“My client will admit that with the evidence the state has a jury could find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of manslaughter,” the defense attorney said.
Bruning’s trial on the murder charge was scheduled to begin July 30 at the Penobscot Judicial Center in Bangor.
If convicted of murder, Bruning would have faced a sentence of between 25 years and life. The maximum sentence for a manslaughter conviction is 30 years.
Trevor Sprague’s body was found face down and on fire under the Harlow Street Bridge on March 7, 2006. The 34-year-old Lubec native and Bangor transient was known to camp along the Kenduskeag Stream.
Details about the circumstances surrounding Sprague’s death and what led investigators to Bruning in 2010 have not been released. It appears that once he was convicted of a felony in South Dakota, his DNA was placed in a national database. It’s possible that DNA from the crime scene in Maine matched Bruning’s DNA once it was in the database.
Maine collects DNA from individuals convicted of felonies but not misdemeanors.
Bangor police confirmed last year that Bruning was a member of Bangor’s transient population when Sprague was killed.
Bruning was serving a two-year sentence for burglary and possession of methamphetamine in South Dakota when he was indicted in November 2010 by the Penobscot County grand jury for murder.
In October 2009 in Bangor District Court, Bruning was convicted of a misdemeanor assault that occurred at what is now the Hope House, a homeless shelter near the University of Maine at Augusta, Bangor campus. The assault took place two weeks after Sprague’s death, according to previously published reports.
In addition to the murder charge, Bruning is facing a local charge of failure to pay the fine for the assault.
He has been held without bail at the Penobscot County Jail since being returned to Maine from South Dakota a year ago. That time is expected to be credited to his manslaughter sentence.
Seems like an awful light sentence for such a horrendous murder.
Seven years. Looks like you CAN get away with murder in Maine.
Seems like the prosecutors may have known there were some problems with their case. They likely had doubts about their ability to get a conviction/get some of their evidence admitted.
I’ve been saying this for years!!–He won’t do much time at all!
Seven years for murder? We’ll be reading about this fella again…in about eight years.
Maybe less than that if he gets time for good behavior!
WOW. Seriuosly? WOW. Go ahead kill someone but dont you dare deal drugs. A Southwest Harbor man who was arrested last month on drug trafficking charges has been sentenced to serve nine years in prison, according to the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency.
If it is the same man I read about he got 27 yrs (3 consecutive 9 year sentences) in which he deserves
Nobody was disputing that the drug dealer deserved it. The comparison was made because a murderer got LESS TIME than this drug dealer. Kinda sad if you ask me.
Did not say he didnt deserve it. just saying he should have killed and set fire to a homeless man. Less time served.
http://bangor-launch.newspackstaging.com/2012/06/07/news/hancock/southwest-harbor-man-gets-9-years-for-dealing-drugs/?ref=latest
Seven years isn’t long enough for prison to have any lasting effect on this guy. He’ll be just as dangerous when he gets out, if not worse. He needs a longer sentence.
Only seven years, Disgusting!!!!!!
Probably less when you subtract time off for good behavior. He will serve maybe 5 years and unless his probation agrees to let him move out of state Maine is stuck with him 4 years out on the streets.
Hmmmmm. If the victim wasn’t homeless…… let’s say a local past basketball star, or a successful businessman, etc. etc., I wonder if the MURDERER would have been offered such a sweet deal. OUR COURTS ARE ABSOLUTELY SICKENING.
Please, please, please, whoever the judge is REJECT THE PLEA AGREEMENT.
Stories like this make me REALLY think when I say “liberty and justice for all” during the pledge of allegiance. Justice? I think not.
Sickening. This makes my stomach roll. How can such a minimal sentence even be considered? And one poster was correct – with “good” time and over crowded jails, this menace will be free and most likely committing crimes within five years. Gag.
7 years for someone’s life? A guy just got 4 years for having a sawed-off shotgun. Wow
What a joke our Judicial System is, it no longer seeks justice or truth, it is a playground where lawyers and judges make the rules for there games and compete. Plea bargaining is a tool used by lawyers to get hard core criminals back on the streets so they can continue to kill, rape or deal drugs etc. Let an honest man or woman make a “mistake” like not wearing there seat belt, having a few too many or driving 10 miles an hour over the speed limit and these same lawyers and judges turn hard core and are out to hang them!!!
You burn down a topless donut shop and you get 30 years…burn a man alive and you only get 7 years…something is seriously wrong here!!!
Unbelievable.
Either the prosecutor has some problems with the evidence, is unprepared and afraid to go to trial, or all of those things. And because the victim was homeless, it’s likely his survivors aren’t pressing the prosecutor for a murder conviction and sentence. But this crime – this murder – is too awful and cruel to be sugared off with an Alford plea and a sweetheart sentence. Now it’s only the judge who’s left to provide justice. Let’s hope that his standards and sense of justice are higher than the prosecutor’s.
He was one of the few who actually pled out. The rest took it to trial, zack Carr, the boitler kid(killed the girl in the shed). Crazy thing about it if those 2 pled out they prob would have got the same. It sucks yes, condolences to all families.
I don’t care if the victim was homeless, a doctor, a local business owner or LeBron James, that is just a slap in the face to the victim’s family and to society as a whole. Hopefully the judge rejects this and sends this guy away for a long time.
Fingers crossed the judge uses common sence today.
Seven years, disgusting, Maine needs new judges and the death penalty time to call lepage and see what he can do
The article says they connect him to the crime with DNA evidence. Sad to plea bargain with this type of evidence. I feel bad for Trevor’s family. Because their loved one was homeless his life is only worth seven years. Shame on the court system!
WHAT?! 7 years? This is infuriating.
Our justice system is becoming a joke.
7 years for murder? Must be a typo or misunderstanding…oh wait hold on, first sentence explains it all: He is from another state, we can’t be too harsh on people from another state, we want to let them know it is OK to come to Maine, commit some crimes, yeah we might put you in jail but not for a very long time. If you got ties to another state…it’s OK.
Maine: Your one stop place for crime.
15 years with all but 7 suspended BRILLIANT…..7 years for killing and setting someone on fire….I’m sure with good behavior he’ll be in and out in 5 years or under…..and I’m sure with Mr. Bruning be such a stellar member of society we won’t hear from him again until he kills someone else……pffffffffft.
…..
OK – so now I know that if I ever kill some one and set them on fire I can just say “I am not saying I DID kill the guy and I am not saying I DIDN’T kill him… but, most likely any jury would say I did. So I’ll just go to jail for seven years instead of taking my chances w/ a jury.”
But, if the victim was not homeless, would I still be offered the same plea bargain or is it only because the victim was not “well-loved and respected in the community (aka: Bangor where he was killed)”? And before anyone jumps on me, I am not saying that Mr. Sprague was not loved by many, because I am sure he was!
Sounds like a very odd plea bargain, but that’s why you gotta love the judicial system!
If it was a elite sports star from bangor high school with special parents who died it would be an automatic 60 years in prison.
Yes you would be CORRECT and who says money and status don’t buy you happiness…..or your kid out of having to take any responsibility for causing someone else’s death….funny how that works.
Trevor WAS a well-loved member of our community, who just happened to be living in Bangor. It is not fair and not right at all that delinquent gets 7 years, but lets not forget they’re including the year he’s already served at PCJ, so there’s 6 years left, good behavior, and such.. yeah not likely he’ll be in there for 5 years. The man that stabbed two adults and a child gets 90 years, why can’t this man get 30 years as well? He INTENTIONALLY set Trevor on fire. How is there any justice in this????
I am so sorry for the loss that you and all the members of your community are still suffering… It really is not justice served for his memory by any means.
I hope that time will help you be able to move beyond this and the memories you have him will make all of this a little easier to bear.
There is no justice in this—-
If Porter is found guilty of murder in killing a Florida drug dealer, how much time do you think he’ll get when they attach the word firefighter to it???
BURN DOWN A BUILDING=30 years…BURN A HUMAN BEING= 7 YEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOW. Justice???
Priorities…… :/
Must be the fault of the methadone clinics and the homeless shelter.
crazy crazy crazy the court system needs a big overhaul
Welcome to Maine, home of the misdeameanor homicide…UNBELIEVABLE…
This makes no sense to me. I’m speechless.
i have been following sentences given out in maine courtrooms for 12 years
i have come to one conclusion:
maine judges give long jail sentences and life in jail sentences to BLACK PEOPLE….whites get suspended sentences and light sentences example: in the past ten years,the only defendant in a maine courtroom to be given a “life sentence” for a crime where a death did NOT occur, was a BLACK person
Had the defendant in this crime was a black person, he would have been given life in jail.
do this, pretend my conclusion is nonsense. on your own, start observing the sentences given to whites and blacks in maine courts
oh please. Drop the race card. Your arguement is completely ridiculous. Thanks for the laugh
The Maine courts system has proven once again that there is no rhyme nor reason to anything they do. Sentences are not fitting the crime, plea deals are allowing murderers to get out and do it again, and child molesters are allowed to walk the streets smirking at the so-called Justice that Maine deals out. I dont know how one lawyer, judge, prosecuter, or District Attorney in this state, sleeps at night knowing the scum they allow to walk out of the halls of justice with the proverbial slap on the wrist. These men and women that allow this obviously have no sense of humanity or compassion for the families of victims that will live with these horrendous acts for the remainder of their lives. It may be a country wide thing as well but it just makes me physically ill to think about.
Takes a scum to represent a scum….
Well the judge approved it… seven years with credit for time served…
The prosecutor argued that the case was circumstantial and that he would rather have “half a loaf” than none, and the judge, William Anderson, rolled over and accepted the deal. In other words, the AAG was afraid to try the case and the judge let him get away with it.