ROCKLAND, Maine — A 58-year-old Whitefield man received a suspended jail term Monday after admitting to stalking a woman after an alleged road rage incident.
Matthew P. Connellan pleaded guilty Monday in Knox County Unified Court to stalking. A charge of driving to endanger was dismissed. He was sentenced by Justice Daniel Billings to 90 days in jail with the entire sentence suspended and placed on administrative release for a year.
The incident occurred in October 2014, according to an affidavit filed in court by the Knox County Sheriff’s Office. The victim reported that a vehicle passed her and then cut back into her lane so close that she had to brake and veer off to the side of the road.
The woman told police she beeped her horn and raised her arms as if to ask the other driver what he was doing. The woman thought that was the end of the dispute but then he began driving 25 to 30 mph, and whenever she tried to pass him, he would speed up and not allow her to pass. Eventually, she turned off the main road to avoid being behind him, according to the affidavit.
The woman said that she was back at her home at about 1:30 p.m. when she saw the same car drive past her home. The man then drove repeatedly by her house, slower each time while staring at her. This continued until nearly 8 p.m. when her boyfriend arrived and the other driver left.
The woman called the sheriff’s department about the incident and provided deputies a license plate number. She was informed that the car was registered to Connellan, who is a convicted sex offender, according to the affidavit. The woman also identified him through photographs.
According to the state’s sex offender registry, Connellan was convicted in 1991 of gross sexual assault and possession of sexually explicit material of a child younger than 12 years old.