BANGOR, Maine — An observant Bangor police officer who spotted a man he suspected of being wanted on Saturday afternoon, stopped him and discovered once he ran him through the onboard computer that he had 11 outstanding warrants, Sgt. Tim Cotton, Bangor police spokesman, said Wednesday.
David Fisher, 48, who is listed as a Brewer transient, was arrested just before 2 p.m. Saturday by Officer Bryan Smith.
“Smith saw him walking across the street on Ohio Street near the cemetery and knew from previous information that Fisher had warrants,” Cotton said. “He was arrested without incident on the case.”
After his arrest on Saturday, Fisher was taken to Penobscot County Jail. He was released after appearing in court at the Penobscot Judicial Center on Monday, a jail official said.
“Every one of the warrants is for unpaid fines — all eleven,” he said.
This is not the first time Fisher has been charged with outstanding warrants. He was arrested in Bangor on seven outstanding warrants and possession of illegal drugs in August 2012. He was convicted of unlawful possession of scheduled drugs and sentenced in November 2012 to pay a $400 fine, according to previous Bangor Daily News court listings.
On Jan. 29, 2013, he was charged with felony theft by unauthorized taking and negotiating a worthless instrument, after an investigation into stolen checks by Bangor police.
The stolen checks investigation turned federal when Fisher was charged in U.S. District Court in October 2013 with theft or receipt of stolen mail from eight people between Bangor and Ellsworth.
He was sentenced in May 2014 by U.S. District Judge Nancy Torresen to 4 months behind bars with three years of supervised release, as well as $3,195 in restitution, federal court documents state.
Fisher has also been convicted previously of multiple counts of theft, violating bail conditions, driving with a suspended license, forgery, failure to report an accident by the quickest means and misuse of identification.
The Bangor Police Department posted an item about Fisher on its Facebook page, without mentioning his name, in reference to daily updates given by command staff about outstanding warrants.
“Yesterday a name came up and the individual was arrested having 11 active warrants that were cleared up when they were taken into custody,” the post states. “That was the highest number we have run across in quite some time.”
The post also added a suggestion: “If you have an active warrant for your arrest, whether it be in state or out of state, you can always turn yourself in to any law enforcement officer. If the number of active warrants begins to climb and you are getting dangerously close to ten or more, I would suggest that you stop at the county jail closest to you and just let them know that you want to clear up the issues and then start again with a clean slate.
“I think it would feel pretty good to walk around without any of that inevitable paranoia of knowing that sooner or later (sometimes much later) you are going to be arrested,” the Bangor police post states.
BDN reporter Dawn Gagnon contributed to this story.