ROCKLAND, Maine — An attorney for a 68-year-old Rockland man who shot an alleged intruder in his apartment has appealed to the state’s highest court the dismissal of his lawsuit against the landlord and property management company that ordered him to give up his gun after the shooting.
Attorney Patrick Strawbridge of Boston filed the appeal Friday to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court in the lawsuit that tenant Harvey Lembo filed against Park Place Associates and Stanford Management.
The lawsuit was filed after the management company gave a written notice to Lembo that he could not have a gun at Park Place Apartments or he would be evicted. Gun rights advocates, including the National Rifle Association, have supported Lembo in the lawsuit.
Justice William Stokes ruled on May 12 that Lembo’s attorneys had failed to allege any facts supporting his claim that the defendants interfered with the exercise of his constitutionally guaranteed rights by actual or threatened physical force or violence, which is required to be in violation of the Maine Civil Rights Act.
Strawbridge contends in his appeal that Justice Stokes erred in not determining that the threat of eviction met the standards for violating the state’s civil rights law.
There is no timetable for when the case will be heard by the state high court or when it would rule.
Lembo’s attorney had argued in Knox County Unified Court earlier this year that Lembo was a vulnerable person who had his apartment broken into multiple times and that he suffered emotional distress after being threatened with eviction.
All the management company did was send a notice that could have led to litigation, the attorneys for the companies had argued.
Lembo told the Bangor Daily News on Sept. 1, 2015, that he had purchased a 7 mm Russian-made revolver the day before he shot an intruder because he had been the victim of four previous burglaries in the six years he had lived in the apartment. In those instances, his medications and money had been taken.
Lembo said he was awoken on the night of Aug. 31, 2015, by a sound in his apartment and saw a shadow pass by his kitchen into the living room. Lembo said he took the gun, which he had under his pillow, and confronted the intruder, who was rifling through Lembo’s medications.
Lembo said he ordered the man to sit down, which he did initially, but then the man got up and tried to flee. Lembo said he fired a shot, which struck the man in the shoulder.
Rockland police later found Christopher Wildhaber, 45, in nearby woods and had him treated for his wound before taking him to jail.
Wildhaber has been charged with burglary, theft of medication, attempted theft and three counts of refusing to submit to arrest. He has been held at the Knox County Jail in Rockland since his arrest.
Police confiscated Lembo’s gun as evidence in Wildhaber’s case, and it will be kept until that case concludes.
Wildhaber has pleaded not guilty. His attorney, William Pagnano, said one defense argument that may be raised is that Wildhaber was too intoxicated to realize he was in the wrong residence.
Wildhaber is scheduled for a probation revocation hearing on June 14.