A Litchfield man was arrested Friday on various charges after allegedly driving a car 114 mph on Interstate 295 in West Gardiner while intoxicated and getting stopped by a Maine State Police trooper.
The man, 30-year-old Ethan Francine, was arrested on charges of operating under the influence, criminal speeding and violating conditions of release, according to an affidavit filed by Trooper Niles Krech.
Krech took Francine to the Gardiner Police Department after the arrest, where a breath test showed his blood alcohol level was 0.12 percent, Krech wrote. In Maine, the legal driving limit is 0.08 percent.
Before the Friday arrest, Francine was free on $1,000 cash bail for two felony counts of possession of sexually explicit materials of minors under age 12. In August, he was indicted on those charges and pleaded not guilty to them at the Capital Judicial Center in Augusta.
Those charges are still pending, and Francine’s next court appearance is a dispositional conference scheduled for Feb. 14, said Maeghan Maloney, district attorney of Kennebec and Somerset counties, in an email.
After his arrest last week, Francine is being held without bail at the Kennebec County jail because of the pending charges of possessing child pornography, a jail employee said Tuesday. If not for those charges, his bail for the alleged speeding violation would have been $750, the employee said.
Krech, the trooper who arrested Francine, was parked on the side of Interstate 295 on Friday and facing northbound traffic when he saw Francine’s vehicle coming over a hill. His radar recorded Francine allegedly moving at 114 mph.
After interviewing Francine, Krech wrote in the affidavit, “I could smell the odor of intoxicating beverages coming from him when he spoke to me.” Krech signed his affidavit at 10:17 a.m. Friday.
Francine made his initial court appearance for the recent charges on Monday, according to court documents.
Over the summer, the indictment against Francine alleged that he possessed child pornography from Feb. 5 to March 24, 2016, in Litchfield. The maximum penalty for each count is five years in prison.
At the time of Francine’s arrest last March, a news release from Maine State Police spokesman Stephen McCausland said police seized computers from Francine’s home that contained child pornography. He also said Francine worked as a lifeguard at the Bath YMCA pool.
Francine’s case has been delayed because he fired an attorney who was representing him and hired another, Maloney said. The courts allowed more time for the new attorney to build a defense.
Charles Eichacker — 621-5642
Twitter: @ceichacker
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