AUGUSTA — A Providence, Rhode Island, man accused of a home invasion in Sidney in March pleaded not guilty Thursday to a number of charges related to that incident.
Dreaquan Foster, 22, was indicted last month on eight charges, including elevated aggravated assault for allegedly hitting the homeowner’s son, Eric Hewett, on the head with a hammer; aggravated criminal mischief; burglary; theft by unauthorized use of property, for taking a vehicle without consent; and three counts of criminal mischief.
Police say that on March 12 in Sidney, Foster was kicking down a door to get to the 84-year-old resident who had taken refuge in her bedroom. Police said Foster abandoned a vehicle that day on Interstate 95 and walked to the woman’s Lyons Road home.
Hewett, who lived nearby, arrived in response to a call for help from his mother and shot Foster in a struggle.
Foster was arraigned Thursday in a courtroom at the Capital Judicial Center while standing next to his attorney, Thomas Tilton.
Foster responded “not guilty” to all eight charges in answer to the judge’s questions.
He has been held at the Kennebec County jail since May.
The prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Alisa Ross, asked that bail, currently set at $100,000, be continued. Conditions of bail include a prohibition on contact with the victims.
Tilton said he wanted to reserve the right to argue bail at a later date, and Justice Donald Marden agreed.
Foster’s case is set for a dispositional conference in November.
It did not appear that any of those named as victims attended the brief arraignment Thursday.
Hewett was hospitalized for several days at Maine Medical Center and later, in an interview, said that after his mother called him in a panic, he grabbed his compact Ruger handgun, sped to her home in his Toyota Camry and ran in through the garage entrance.
“I yelled, ‘I have a gun; get out of this house! Get out of this house!’” Hewett said during that interview. “The next thing I know, I was being attacked.”
In the fight that followed, a hammer-wielding burglar swung at him. Hewett suffered a concussion and a skull fracture, among other injuries, and blood was pouring down one side of his face. But he managed to shoot his alleged assailant in the chest and, after more wrestling, held him at gunpoint until help could arrive.
“I managed to get him pinned in a position I was happy holding him in until police showed up, with the gun on him,” Hewett said. “I was telling him not to move and telling him what was going to happen to him if he did, because I didn’t care at that point. It was him or me.”
In that same interview, Hewett’s mother, Audrey Hewett, said the stranger who entered her home around 7 p.m. that night first knocked on her front door. He asked to use the telephone, but Audrey Hewett told him to look elsewhere.
At that point, she said, Foster got angry, banged on her front door and finally climbed a snowbank and broke through the bay window on the front of her home. She immediately called her son and retreated into her bedroom, continuing to speak on the phone with Eric’s wife, Patty Hewett, who called 911 at 7:11 p.m. that day using a different phone.
Foster was treated for a gunshot wound to the chest. There was no sign of that injury on Thursday.
Betty Adams — 621-5631
Twitter: @betadams
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