Bangor stabbing suspect held on $50,000 bail

BANGOR, Maine — Bail for the man charged with manslaughter in the May 22 stabbing death on First Street was set at $50,000 during his first appearance in court Friday morning.

Jason Alan Trickett, 41, was arrested earlier Friday morning on a city bus, Bangor police Sgt. Garry Higgins said.

Police received information that Trickett was at Pickering Square and Officer Paul Colley found him there about 7:15 a.m.

“He was arrested without incident,” Higgins said.

Trickett’s first court appearance at the Penobscot Judicial Center was held about 11 a.m. He entered no plea.

Police say Trickett mortally stabbed Andy D. Smith, 38, during a group fight near 67 First St. around 1:45 p.m. May 22. Smith later died at Eastern Maine Medical Center.

During the short hearing Friday morning at the Penobscot Judicial Center, Superior Court Justice William Anderson noted that because the case involves a homicide, “we will not be asking for pleas since the defendant has not been indicted.”

“I expect to present the case to the grand jury later this month,” Assistant Attorney General Andrew Benson told the judge.

A dispositional conference was scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Aug. 9.

Trickett, who was wearing an orange jail jumpsuit and had various tattoos visible on his arms and the back of his neck, did not say a word during the hearing.

Trickett was represented in court by defense attorney Marvin Glazier. Attorney Hunter Tzovarras also was at the defendant’s table and could be seen discussing matters with Trickett.

Glazier said afterward that he needed time to review the case before making any comments.

“This is all I know,” he said, holding up the brief Superior Court arrest warrant.

Glazier also asked and was granted permission to return to court in the future in order to review Trickett’s bail conditions.

Since May 22, police have been interviewing people involved in the fight that led up to the stabbing. Police haven’t said what weapon was used.

Police Chief Ron Gastia announced Thursday afternoon that a warrant had been issued for Trickett’s arrest.

An eyewitness and friend of Smith told the Bangor Daily News that Smith was arguing with a woman he once lived with out in the street when another woman intervened.

The second woman, who lives at 71 First St.,“came out with a two-by-four and she hit him,” apparently in defense of the first woman, said Eugene “Shawn” Cox, a resident of 69 First St.

“He got the two-by-four away from her and she called for her friends. They all started on him.”

Seconds later, Smith was bleeding from a wound to his left rib area and was trying to get away. Cox did not see who stabbed his friend, whom he had met in middle school.

“I ran down with a pipe” and met Smith at the bottom of the steps, he said.

The last thing Smith said to his longtime friend was “to tell his kids that he loved them,” Cox said.

Smith was a 1992 graduate of Hermon High School and had studied at the University of Maine at Augusta in Bangor, then known as the University College of Bangor, according to his obituary.

“Andy was a dive master instructor in the Florida Keys and worked in construction in the family business,” the obituary said.

Smith recently had lived in Mendocino, Calif., according to his Facebook page, and moved back to the area three or four months ago because he has two children, ages 7 and 11, who live in Orono, his friend said.

Trickett has appeared in Bangor Daily News court listings for drug-related offenses in 2011, 2010 and 2005.