BANGOR, Maine — In the transcript of the 911 call made to police by a 27-year-old black man late on a Friday night in November, he says that an unknown man attacked him near downtown and kept telling him, “Trump is going to deport you.”
Joshua Pendergast, 42, of Bangor was charged Nov. 21 with misdemeanor assault for his role in the incident that occurred three days prior. On Wednesday, Pendergast entered a not guilty plea and asked for a jury trial, according to his Bangor attorney Christopher Largay.
“We entered a waiver of entry of appearance and a not guilty plea,” Largay said in a text message.
The filings were both done via paperwork, the message said, “so neither the client nor counsel needed to appear in court today.”
The 911 call was made at 11:48 p.m. on Nov. 18 near Essex and Somerset streets, according to a transcript provided by the Bangor Police Department to the Bangor Daily News following a Freedom of Access Act request.
The caller can be heard by the dispatcher asking someone nearby for the address at the beginning of the call, and then goes on to say “somebody attacked me,” the transcript indicates.
“I don’t even know this person,” the 27-year-old man tells the dispatcher. “And he — he had alcohol in his hand, and he started attacking me, and then he kept telling me, ‘Trump is gonna deport you.’”
“He took my glasses off and started attacking me,” the man says later.
The man was on the phone and looking for his glasses when Kate Dickerson and John Thompson, who live nearby, happened upon him. He told Dickerson and Thompson that the man who attacked him smelled of alcohol, was wearing a suit and carrying a plastic cup, Dickerson said in a later post on social media and in a letter to Bangor City Council members.
Bangor police Officer Daniel Perez was the first officer to respond to the call and was able to find the man’s glasses, which were broken, Sgt. Tim Cotton said at the time.
The couple went to social media to denounce the attack as a hate crime and also sent a letter to the Bangor City Council. Some council members responded with their own social media posts, saying that hate crimes would not be tolerated in Bangor.
“[The victim] was assaulted purely for the color of his skin, and whoever did this was arguably emboldened by recent events in the country,” Dickerson posted two days after the incident, which was before Pendergast was charged.
There has been a rash of hate crimes reported all over the country in the aftermath of Trump’s election, some in which the perpetrators said they support Trump, NBC has reported.
The Maine attorney general’s office reviewed the Bangor case and determined that the alleged assault was not racially motivated, Cotton has since said.
Without listing who exactly would be sued, Largay released a statement at the end of November saying Pendergast was preparing to sue the person who wrote about the incident on social media and the city councilors who denounced the alleged incident as racially motivated before the police investigation was completed. That paperwork has not yet been filed.
Largay said Wednesday that his defense team continues to work on the criminal case.
“We’ve requested numerous documents, statements and other discovery of the [District Attorney]’s Office,” Largay said. “Automatic discovery consisted only of two police reports and a third-party statement. The defense’s investigation is ongoing.”
Pendergast will not accept a plea agreement “unless it involves a later dismissal of the charge,” Largay said.
Without it, a jury trial likely will be scheduled for sometime after the new year.
Pendergast faces a penalty of up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000, if convicted of the misdemeanor assault.