BANGOR, Maine — A federal jury will decide whether Sidney Kilmartin is a cold-blooded killer or simply a flimflam man who defrauded suicidal people who paid him for potassium cyanide but received Epsom salts instead.
The trial of Kilmartin, 54, of South Windham began Monday afternoon in U.S. District Court after he pleaded guilty earlier in the day to nine counts of mail and wire fraud.
None of the victims defrauded in those instances died and each is listed as a prosecution witness in the trial.
Kilmartin is being tried on six charges related to the death of Andrew Denton of Hull, England, in December 2012 — two counts of wire fraud and one count each of mail fraud, mailing injurious articles resulting in death, witness tampering and witness retaliation because Denton allegedly complained to authorities that the fake cyanide did not work. After that, Kilmartin allegedly sent the real poison to the Englishman.
“Sidney Kilmartin targeted vulnerable people who were depressed to the point of suicide to take advantage of,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Halsey Frank, who is prosecuting the case, said in his opening statement. “When Andrew Denton had the audacity to complain that Mr. Kilmartin had defrauded and taken advantage of him, Mr. Kilmartin killed him.
“Whether for money or for spite or for both, Sidney Kilmartin targeted these people,” he continued. “He offered them the relief they were seeking. He presented himself as an angel of mercy to them and, instead, he sent them Epsom salts.”
Defense attorney Martin Ridge of Portland told jurors in his opening statement that his client had admitted defrauding people but was not responsible for Denton’s death.
“He is not a killer,” Ridge said of his client. “The government’s evidence is not going to prove he is a killer.”
The attorney told the jury that the evidence presented would not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Kilmartin ever received the potassium cyanide he allegedly ordered.
“The evidence also will fall short in proving the substance found in Andrew Denton’s home was potassium cyanide,” Ridge said. “What was found was cyanide, not potassium cyanide.”
Cyanide can bond with other metals besides potassium, the defense attorney said.
Kilmartin’s attorney does not have to show how Denton obtained the poison that killed him but said the evidence would create enough reasonable doubt in the minds of jurors to show that the Englishman might have gotten it from someone else.
Two witnesses were called late Monday afternoon to testify about the sale of potassium cyanide to a person in Maine and they said they had the poison mailed to a UPS store in Manchester, Maine. Kilmartin allegedly told a California firm that he was purchasing the chemical for use in his jewelry business. Kilmartin is not a jeweler, according to court documents.
The trial is to resume Tuesday morning and scheduled to end Thursday, Oct. 13. The jury is made up of three women and 11 men, two of whom are alternates.
Kilmartin has been held without bail since his arrest on Nov. 5, 2014.
The defendant, who has a history of mental illness, was living in the community but legally was in the custody of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services when he executed the Epsom salts scheme, according to court documents. He was found not criminally responsible in 2009 for crimes he was accused of committing two years earlier, including an aggravated assault on an elderly man.
In October 2015, U.S. District Judge John Woodcock, who is presiding over the trial, found Kilmartin competent to stand trial on the federal charges.
On the mail and wire fraud counts, Kilmartin faces up to 20 years in prison.
If convicted at trial on the other charges connected to Denton’s death, Kilmartin faces life in prison.