Hallucinations lead to Old Town man’s arrest

OLD TOWN, Maine — An Old Town man who called the police early Friday morning to report that people were hiding in the bushes near his home was arrested after police found bath salts, a hypodermic needle and a spoon in his possession.

Noah Mushero, 27, now faces charges of unlawful possession of a synthetic hallucinogen and violating the conditions of his bail from a previous arrest, also for possessing bath salts, Old Town police Capt. Kyle Smart said Monday.

The incident that led to Mushero’s arrest began shortly after midnight Thursday, when Mushero called the police to report that a man wearing a yellow shirt was hiding in the nearby bushes and that two other men dressed in camouflage also were lurking outside his home, Smart said.

Smart said that police found that no one was outside the home and that while Mushero was telling police what he believed he had seen, his mother was shaking her head to indicate to officers that what Mushero was saying was not the truth.

Because Mushero was subject to police searches as a condition of his release from his previous arrest, police checked him and his residence for drugs. When they initially searched Mushero’s person, they found no contraband in his possession.

When they searched his person again after searching his home, they found a small bag of white powder that Mushero reportedly admitted was bath salts as well as the tools used to inject it, Smart said. Smart said that police believe Mushero stashed the drugs in his bedroom and retrieved them while officers were searching elsewhere in his home.

Mushero’s criminal history includes a 2009 conviction for theft for which he was sentenced to three years in jail and ordered to pay $1,500 in restitution and a bail violation conviction for which he received a six-month sentence, according to the Bangor Daily News archives.

Also that year, he was sentenced to six months in jail for another theft charge.

In 2006, he received a four-month sentence when he was convicted of burglary to a motor vehicle. He also was convicted of theft and forgery but his four-month sentence for those charges was suspended.