Convicted murderer gets 3 more years in prison for shank possession

ROCKLAND, Maine — A 51-year-old Maine State Prison inmate already serving a 35-year sentence for murder will spend an additional three years behind bars.

A Knox County jury deliberated for about two hours Wednesday afternoon before convicting Timothy Mooney of possession of prison contraband — in this case a 3-inch makeshift knife referred to as a shank.

Justice Jeffrey Hjelm then sentenced Mooney to three years, which will be served in addition to the current sentence.

Mooney is serving the 35-year sentence for the 1998 murder of former girlfriend Elizabeth Nelson-Blais. In 1998, Mooney was homeless and living in Portland when police said he smashed the woman’s skull with a concrete block after the two had consumed vodka and orange soda in a metal shack.

This was the second trial and conviction for Mooney for possessing the shank. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court overturned the first conviction last spring, saying that testimony made by a prison investigator to jurors — that Mooney would have been charged with additional crimes if the victim of the assault had cooperated — created too much of an unfair prejudice against Mooney.

This week’s trial included testimony from a guard who said she saw Mooney being pushed out of another prisoner’s cell and when she arrived to intervene he made a downward slashing motion toward that prisoner who later was found to have been stabbed twice. She then saw him toss something and heard what sounded like metal hitting concrete. The shank was found after the fight was broken up and the prisoners collared.

Mooney was not charged with the stabbing. The other prisoner did not cooperate with investigators.

Assistant District Attorney Christopher Fernald prosecuted the case. Attorney Thomas Shehan Jr. of Searsport represented Mooney.