BANGOR, Maine — A killer serving a 45-year sentence for slaying a Bangor grocery store worker in 1992 who tried to stop him from shoplifting a six-pack of beer has accused a man of sexually assaulting him decades ago.
Richard A. Bailey, 68, of West Lake, Oregon, has been charged with 30 counts of gross sexual misconduct with a child under the age of 14, a Class A crime, between December 1985 and September 1987. The crime would be gross sexual assault if charged today.
Bailey made his initial appearance Thursday at the Penobscot Judicial Center in Bangor. He was not asked to enter pleas because he has not been indicted on the charges.
Superior Court Justice William Anderson allowed Bailey to be released on $49,000 cash bail with conditions that he let the court know when he leaves Maine and when he is returning for court dates. He also may have no contact with the two alleged victims, who are related to each other and to Bailey.
It is the practice of the Bangor Daily News not to identify alleged victims of sex crimes.
The convicted murderer, now 43, is in the custody of the Maine Department of Corrections but is being housed at a facility in New Hampshire, according to the DOC’s prison locator website. Information about which facility and why he was moved there was unavailable Thursday.
His earliest possible release is Feb. 6, 2019, according to the DOC.
“Mr. Bailey is a retired veteran and air traffic controller who has honorably served his country in Vietnam and afterward,” defense attorney Stephen Smith of Augusta said after the brief hearing. “It is a mystery why the state now wants to bring forward decades old allegations from a convicted murderer.
“In 1992, [the alleged victim] murdered Michael McDowell for his own selfish ends and it appears he want to accuse this good man to further his own cause,” Smith said.
One of the alleged victims, who was born in Thailand and moved to the U.S. when he was 12, was 18 years old when he stabbed an off-duty employee who confronted him about stealing from a Bangor grocery store.
He was convicted of murder in September 1993 and sentenced two months later. The abuse alleged against Bailey was not presented at the trial, according to Bangor Daily News archives.
McDowell was 27 years old and a grocery manager at what was then Doug’s Shop ‘n Save on Broadway when he was killed. He was off duty and shopping when he approached the man who killed him and an accomplice in the parking lot. He had seen an altercation between the two men and store employees inside the store and assumed the two men were shoplifting, according to testimony at their trial.
It was unclear Thursday what sentence and fine Bailey would face if convicted because the penalties have changed since the 1980s. Under today’s statute, he would face up to 30 years in prison and fine of up to $50,000.
Efforts to reach the Penobscot County district attorney’s office to determine why the statute of limitations did not apply in the case were unsuccessful late Thursday.