PORTLAND, Maine — Prominent criminal defense attorney Daniel G. Lilley died Saturday at a local hospital at the age of 79, according to his law firm.
The cause of death was not released Monday morning.
“Dan was a lion of the bar,” Augusta attorney Walter McKee said Monday in an email. “Mention of his name invoked fear in the heart of many a lawyer who knew that a case with Dan was always going to be a battle and Dan would never surrender.”
Lilley, a Houlton native, took on many high profile cases during his 50-year career.
He defended Tony DiMillo of DiMillo’s Restaurant and Lounge, a Portland landmark, who was acquitted of tax evasion in 1985, according to a Portland television station. Five years later, Jacqueline Bevins was found not guilty of murder in the shooting death of her husband. Lilley argued that Bevins suffered from “battered wife syndrome.”
Lilley drew national media coverage in 2013 during his defense of Mark Strong Sr., the Thomaston insurance broker accused of being a partner in the prostitution business run by Zumba instructor Alexis Wright in Kennebunk. Strong Sr. was convicted by a York County jury of 12 counts of promotion of prostitution and one count of conspiracy to promote prostitution on March 6, 2013.
“To watch Dan at trial was always a treat,” McKee said. “He blended aggressive advocacy with a common touch that was really unmatched. Dan was fearless in a courtroom. If he thought he wasn’t getting a fair shake from opposing counsel or the judge he wouldn’t hold back. Ever.”
Most recently, Lilley defended Matthew Davis, 36, of Houlton, who was convicted of two counts of murder, arson and other crimes, during a three-week trial in December in Machias. The trial was moved from Aroostook County after a jury could not be seated last summer. Davis was sentenced to life in prison in February for shooting to death Michael Kitchen, 51, and Heidi Pratt, 49, in the early morning hours of Sept. 23, 2013, in the Oakfield home they shared, setting their house ablaze and fleeing in a stolen pickup truck.
During the trial, Superior Court Justice E. Allen Hunter allowed Lilley to address the judge and question some witnesses while sitting down at the defense table to accommodate unnamed health issues. Lilley stood to address jurors during opening statements and closing arguments.
At sentencing, Lilley urged Hunter to sentence Davis to 25 years, the mandatory minimum sentence for murder.
Lilley initially lost when he was sued for professional negligence by former clients several years ago, but then won on a motion to vacate the verdict.
A Portland jury found in a 6-3 decision in December 2013 that the Lilley Law Office should pay potato farmers Vaughn and Mary Sleeper $1.1 million in compensatory damages as a result of that negligence, according to BDN archives. That verdict was vacated the following June, Jeffrey Bennett, a South Portland attorney, said Monday in an email.
The couple lost the family-owned Sleeper Hill Farms in Sherman Mills as part of the economic fallout from false claims and damaging actions taken by the New York-based agricultural company, Agway. The Sleepers maintained that they were falsely accused by Agway of selling genetically contaminated potato seeds in 1999 and 2000.
They also said Agway owed them more than $100,000 and violated anti-trust laws with intimidation tactics designed to drive the Sleepers out of business, Vaughn Sleeper said in 2013. The Sleepers sued Lilley seeking compensation for emotional distress caused by his handling of the case. Lilley denied any wrongdoing and said his clients were disappointed at receiving only $126,000 in settlement from Agway’s bankruptcy proceeding when he handled the case.
“You will hear from just about every attorney about how Dan was tough as nails and he was,” McKee, who knew Lilley as a colleague and a client, said. “But if you sat down with Dan outside the litigation arena and talked to him, within a few minutes you would find that he really did have a heart of gold, ever so carefully hidden behind the gruff exterior he projected in court.”
Lilley and his wife, Annette, in June 2014 donated $50,000 to support Sweetser’s Learning and Recovery Center in Brunswick, according to BDN archives. The donation was expected to enable the facility, where adults with behavioral health problems have sought treatment and camaraderie for the last 12 years, to continue operating for another year. Sweetser had announced the previous month that it would have to close on June 30, 2014, due to a loss of state funding.
“The services that include an alternative to formal hospitalization will now not be closed for lack of money,” Lilley said when the donation was announced. “We are making this donation in memory of our son, David A. Lilley, whose life was cut short in an automobile accident when he was 18 years old.”
Funeral plans were pending Monday morning.