BANGOR, Maine — A trial began Wednesday for a Mattawamkeag woman who was arrested in the fall for allegedly breaking into her ex-lover’s home, stealing a vacuum cleaner and other items and threatening him with a handgun after he arrived home for lunch.
Kristine L. Neil, 48, is charged with robbery, burglary, criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon, theft by unauthorized taking and criminal operating under the influence of drugs from the Sept. 24, 2015, incident at the home of her former employer and lover in Chester, Penobscot County District Attorney R. Christopher Almy told the jury.
The Bangor Daily News is not identifying the victim. The man hired Neil to clean his house and later slept with her, the district attorney said.
“The defendant actually took a gun and held it to [the man’s] head” after he returned home and caught her at his house taking items, Almy said. “That’s criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon.”
“He had the wherewithal to swat it out of her hand,” Almy said later of the handgun Neil was carrying.
The homeowner called 911. When responding police stopped Neil, some of the items taken from the man’s home were found in her vehicle and she was charged with OUI-drugs, the district attorney said.
Bangor defense attorney Logan Perkins told the jury during her opening statements that her client was only retrieving items she owned, and therefore didn’t break the law.
“Why we are here today is about a vacuum cleaner,” Perkins told the 13 jury members, while displaying a picture of an Electrolux vacuum.
The vacuum was purchased by Neil and was used by her to make a living cleaning homes, she said.
“You can’t steal what is yours,” Perkins said.
She explained that her client has a concealed weapons permit and “is justified in” using it to defend her property. Perkins also said that her client “suffers from mental illness, especially anxiety” and takes prescribed medications.
“She took the medication that is prescribed to her. That is the basis of the OUI charge,” Perkins told jurors.
The first witness for the prosecution was a 17-year-old boy who was staying his with mother in an RV parked on a lot located next to the man’s trailer on Chester Road, also known as Route 116. He testified that Neil drove her car to the back of the lot where his family was located, covered it with a blanket and told him and his mother that “she was going to commit a felony” just before making several trips to her ex-lover’s trailer to retrieve items, including a fan, vacuum, money and other items.
“My mom said, ‘You shouldn’t be here. [The man] doesn’t want you there,’” the teen testified.
Neil ignored her and changed into a camouflage jacket, to match her camo pants, and then grabbed her handgun before heading next door to retrieve items.
Neil’s trial is expected to last through Friday, said District Court Judge John Lucy, who also acknowledged before the trial started that a plea agreement had been offered and declined by Neil. The declined agreement would have dropped the most serious of the five crimes in exchange for guilty pleas for the other four that would have resulted in a proposed three-year sentence with all but six months suspended.
“You understand there is a mandatory minimum if you are convicted,” Lucy said.
Neil faces a minimum of four years if convicted of the felony robbery, the most serious of the five crimes, her attorney said. The maximum penalty for Class A robbery is up to 30 years.