ROCKLAND, Maine — A 52-year-old Cushing man with a history of violent offenses and who served time in the beating death of a 4-year-old girl was fined $500 Wednesday for domestic violence assault against his girlfriend.
Harold H. Clarke Jr. denied assaulting his girlfriend but nevertheless pleaded guilty to the assault charge Wednesday in Rockland District Court.
He was arrested on Dec. 9 after being accused of throwing a sleeve of saltine crackers that struck the woman in the back of the head, according to Assistant District Attorney Christopher Fernald. The prosecutor said Clarke also threw a pot at his girlfriend but it missed.
Addressing Judge Patricia Worth, Clarke said, “I never threw nothing.”
Worth asked him why he was pleading guilty if he had not committed the alleged offense.
“If I tried to take it to court, I would be fried because of my record,” Clarke said.
Worth then accepted the plea and fined him $500, which had been recommended by the prosecution “because of the nature of the assault.” Fernald said the victim had not cooperated with the district attorney’s office.
Clarke was convicted of manslaughter in 1997 for the November 1994 death of Deanna Marie Wadsworth. Clarke, who had been babysitting his girlfriend’s daughter, was accused of punching the 4-year-old in the abdomen multiple times. She later died from internal bleeding.
The first two trials in his manslaughter case ended in hung juries, but he was convicted when prosecuted a third time in 1997. Clarke was sentenced in June 1998 to 15 years in prison with all but 9 years suspended. He served 6½ years before being released.
After his release, Clarke was charged in 2004 with operating under the influence in Belfast. While serving time for that OUI offense at Knox County Jail in Rockland in November 2004, he punched another inmate and was arrested for assault. He pleaded no contest to that assault in 2005 and was sentenced to 30 days in jail.
In March 2010, he was given a suspended jail term and fined $400 for aggravated trafficking in marijuana.