BANGOR, Maine — A South Windham man accused of sending potassium cyanide to a person in England who used it to commit suicide pleaded guilty Monday in U.S. District Court to nine counts of mail and wire fraud unrelated to the alleged victim’s death.
The trial of Sidney P. Kilmartin, 54, on charges related to the death of Andrew Denton of Hull, England, in December 2012 is scheduled to begin with opening arguments Monday afternoon following jury selection.
The trial is scheduled to end Thursday, Oct. 13.
Kilmartin will be tried on 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 to the Englishman the real poison.
On Monday morning, Kilmartin pleaded guilty to five counts of wire fraud and four counts of mail fraud in connection with his sending Epsom salts to at least five people in the United States and England, excluding Denton, between April 2012 and February 2013. Those individuals are listed as potential prosecution witnesses in Kilmartin’s trial
U.S. District Judge John Woodcock said the fact that Kilmartin had pleaded guilty to the wire fraud and mail fraud charges could be used as evidence against him in the pending trial.
By pleading guilty to the charges, Kilmartin, who lived in Manchester, Maine, in 2012 and 2013, admitted that he accepted money from people who thought they were buying cyanide. Instead, he sent them Epsom salts, according to the prosecution version of events to which he pleaded guilty.
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 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 of charges connected to Denton’s death, Kilmartin faces life in prison.