EAST MACHIAS, Maine — Christopher Knight, the man known as the North Pond Hermit, is willing to pay restitution for what he took from people to survive, his attorney told the Maine Supreme Judicial Court on Thursday when it convened at Washington Academy.
“ He’s not willing to pay the Maine State Police for fixing a road they damaged,” Walter McKee of Augusta said.
Knight, 50, has refused to pay $1,125 to the state police for the cost of grading a camp road that investigators used to remove Knight’s campsite and stolen items he had accumulated in the woods, where he reportedly lived for more than two decades.
His appeal was one of three cases justices considered Thursday morning when they heard oral arguments in three appeals before 425 students, according to Mary Ann Lynch, spokeswoman for the court system. Later in the day, the justices were in Machias to participate in a dedication ceremony for the recently expanded and renovated Washington County Courthouse.
The justices usually convene at high schools in the fall but coordinated the visit to East Machias in connection with the courthouse dedication, Lynch said late Thursday afternoon.
McKee argued in his brief that “restitution is only allowed for true ‘economic loss.’ The alleged ‘victim’ is not anyone involved in Knight’s offenses but was the state police, and the creation of a road or repair was unrelated to Knight’s burglary and theft conviction.”
The attorney told the justices Thursday that Superior Court Justice Nancy Mills should not have used the environmental cleanup law to make Knight pay restitution.
“Environmental cleanup doesn’t really fit the bill here,” McKee said Thursday.
Justice Ellen Gorman pointed out that if Knight had been convicted of criminal mischief along with burglary and theft he would have been required to restore the property where his campsite was located to its original state.
Paul Cavanaugh, assistant district attorney for Kennebec County, said that Knight should pay the restitution because he caused the damage.
“You have to look at causation,” he told the justices. “But for the police responding to and investigating this type of crime would the environmental damage have happened?”
Knight, who is now on probation, did not attend the arguments. Where he is living and working has not been made public.
McKee told the justices Thursday that Knight did not have the ability to pay the restitution imposed.
Knight was arrested on April 13, 2013, in Rome while leaving the Pine Tree Camp with a number of food items, according to a previously published report.
He admitted to committing more than 1,000 burglaries in the North Pond area over the course of the 27 years he spent living in the woods. Knight pleaded guilty in October 2013 to 13 counts of burglary and theft.
Knight served seven months at the Kennebec County Jail. He graduated from the Augusta mental health court in March 2015.
The justices considered two separate appeals Thursday.
Brothers Kevin Carton, 30, and Micah Carton, 28, of New Limerick have challenged the circumstances under which the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency searched a camp, owned by an uncle, in Amity in November 2013 where they were staying. The brothers admitted to using a one-pot method to make methamphetamine at the camp but reserved their rights to appeal.
The third appeal stemmed from a civil case that resulted from an Oct. 3, 2011, fire that destroyed a Medway business. Richard Day, owner of Day’s Auto Body, sued the town and the business, Emery Lee and Sons Inc., from which the town rented an excavator, alleging both were negligent in fighting the fire. Day has claimed in his appeal that some of the equipment at the business could have been saved except for the actions taken by firefighters and the operator of the excavator.
A lower court judge found that the town was immune from the lawsuit as was Emery Lee because the owner was working as an employee of the town at the fire.
An attorney for the town claims Superior Court Justice William Anderson properly granted summary judgment to Medway because it, and by extension, Emery Lee and Sons were immune from the lawsuit.