MACHIAS, Maine — A jury trial for a former sheriff charged with four misdemeanor crimes stemming from confrontations he allegedly was involved in last month tentatively has been set for April 21.
Donnie Smith, who was sheriff of Washington County from 2006 through the end of December, is facing charges of reckless conduct, driving to endanger and two counts of harassment by telephone or electronic communication device, according to documents on file in the court clerk’s office in Machias.
Smith, 62, of Lubec was not in court on Tuesday morning, when several other defendants in unrelated cases appeared in front of District Court Judge David Mitchell to enter pleas. Smith’s attorney Don Brown of Brewer had filed a written entry of appearance, waiver of reading of the charges, and pleas of not guilty on all four charges.
Brown also has filed with the court a request for a jury trial on all four charges.
Neither Brown nor Smith was present in the courtroom Tuesday morning when Mitchell called out Smith’s name, but state law does not require defendants charged with misdemeanor charges to appear personally in court for arraignments. The judge set a tentative trial date of April 21, but also noted that the case will be transferred to Washington County Superior Court, which could reschedule the trial.
Chris Ka Sin Chu, assistant district attorney for Washington County, handled arraignments for the prosecutors’ office on Tuesday, but declined to comment on Smith’s case.
Several recent attempts to contact Brown for comment about Smith’s case have been unsuccessful. Efforts to find contact information for Smith also have been unsuccessful.
The two incidents that led to the charges stem from confrontations involving Smith in early January. One incident involved a series of text messages he had with Sheriff’s Department employees on and around Jan. 1, according to charging documents. The texts were “offensively coarse or obscene” and were sent without the consent of the recipients, the documents state.
Another involved Deborah Bousquet, a Lubec teacher who had a prior roadside confrontation with Smith in October, when they each went to Route 189 after a report of an incident on a school bus. In the prior incident, which resulted in Smith arresting Bousquet on assault charges, Bousquet and Smith each accused the other of aggravating the situation on the bus.
All charges against Bousquet stemming from the Oct. 8 incident later were dropped by District Attorney Matthew Foster for lack of evidence. She since has notified Smith of her intent to file a civil lawsuit against him, alleging that with her arrest he falsely imprisoned her, assaulted her and used excessive force. No civil complaint against Smith has been filed in court.
Bousquet was suspended from her job at Lubec Consolidated School over the Oct. 8 incident and, last week, unsuccessfully appealed the suspension to the Lubec School Committee.
A subsequent alleged confrontation that Smith had with Bousquet on Jan. 6, after he left office, resulted in Smith being charged with reckless conduct and driving to endanger. Bousquet and Foster each have said that, in that incident, Smith was driving his truck in front of Bousquet’s vehicle on Route 189 in Lubec when he twice stopped abruptly, nearly causing a crash each time.
Bousquet and Foster also have each said that, after the second near-crash, Smith got out of his truck, yelled at Bousquet, and tried to open the driver’s-side door of her car before driving away.
