A Millinocket man accused of cutting another man’s arm with a samurai sword 19 months ago was sentenced Wednesday to five days in jail after pleading no contest to a misdemeanor charge of making a threatening display of a weapon, according to the Penobscot County District Attorney’s office.
Jeremy Rideout, 37, was indicted in July 2020 on one count of aggravated assault, a Class B crime, in connection with a fight on the night of Dec. 29, 2019, in the parking lot of Stearns High School in Millinocket.
District Court Judge Kevin Stitham ordered Rideout to begin serving the sentence at the Penobscot County Jail on Friday.
A no-contest plea results in a conviction.
Rideout’s attorney, Nolan Tanous of Millinocket, said Thursday that the fight was over his client’s ex-girlfriend, who had asked Rideout to meet her and her new boyfriend in the school parking lot.
Video from school security cameras showed that Rideout arrived in his truck and the man and woman arrived on foot, the lawyer said. At one point the trio moved out of camera range. When they returned, the video showed Rideout bend over, pick something up off the ground and put it in his back pocket.
Following that, Rideout, who was waving the sword around, cut the arm of the man, who was wearing a short-sleeve shirt and shorts, with the sword, Tanous said. The injured man was treated and released from Millinocket Regional Hospital, according to a previously published report.
The thing Rideout picked up off the ground and kept was a knife the other man brought with him to the fight, Tonous said. Rideout’s hand was cut with the knife while they were out of camera range. In her statement to police the ex-girlfriend admitted that her new boyfriend brought a knife with him.
Rideout turned himself in to Millinocket police on Jan. 1, 2020. He was taken to the jail in Bangor and has been free since being released on bail that same day.
On the Class D weapons charge, Rideout faced up to a year in prison and fine of up to $2,000. If he had been convicted of the felony, he would have faced up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $20,000.