WISCASSET, Maine — A Clinton man pleaded guilty Sept. 25 to the aggravated assault of a prisoner on July 10 at Two Bridges Regional Jail in Wiscasset.
Jeremy J. Holt, 24, pleaded guilty to the aggravated assault of a Boothbay man who was being held for sentencing after he pleaded guilty in June to five counts of possession of sexually explicit material.
According to an affidavit by Paul Rubashkin, an investigator for Two Bridges, the inmate Holt assaulted said he was using the phone and “out of nowhere started getting punched in both sides of his head.”
The victim lost portions of two teeth in the assault, was cut across his nose, complained of pain in his ear, had abrasions to his shoulder and a bruise on his elbow, according to Rubashkin’s affidavit.
The two teeth were later surgically removed, according to Assistant District Attorney Andrew Wright.
Holt admitted to assaulting the man, saying he and the other inmate had words earlier in the day, and he was not going to put up with the other inmate, according to the affidavit.
Video surveillance caught the assault on tape, and a recording in the phone system caught “the sounds of an assault,” according to Rubashkin.
According to Wright, Holt’s plea to the aggravated assault and a Class E charge of violation of condition of release are part of a negotiated plea that includes a case from Kennebec County.
Lisa Whittier, Holt’s attorney, said Holt is charged with Class A robbery in Kennebec County, which will be reduced to a Class B as part of the plea deal.
The sentencing agreement on the robbery charge will be eight years in prison with all but four years suspended followed by three years probation, or a straight five-year sentence, Whittier said.
For the aggravated assault, Holt will serve a one-year sentence concurrent to the robbery sentence, but as part of the plea deal, the sentence for the robbery was increased by a year from the deal originally offered to Holt, Wright said.
Justice Daniel Billings accepted Holt’s guilty plea and continued the matter for sentencing in Kennebec County, but he said an additional year in prison for Holt’s conduct is “on the lower end of reasonable.”
“I hope you understand from this that it’s not appropriate, despite whatever you may think of fellow inmates’ conduct, it’s not appropriate for you to take the law into your own hands and impose your own punishment on them,” Billings said.
“I suggest that where you’re going there may be people that think the conduct that you engaged in is worthy of more punishment than you’ll ultimately receive from the court, and you could be the victim of the same type of crime,” he said.