At a 2010 sentencing hearing, Judge Robert E. Crowley sentenced Flick to nearly four years in prison. But Crowley discarded arguments by Flick’s probation officer and a prosecutor who said Flick should serve an additional four to five years because he showed no signs of slowing his extremely violent behavior, according to court records.

“At some point Mr. Flick is going to age out of his capacity to engage in this conduct and incarcerating him beyond the time that he ages out doesn’t seem to me to make good sense from a criminological or fiscal perspective,” Crowley said, pointing out that Flick would be 72 or 73 when he would be released in 2014.

Flick is now accused of fatally stabbing Kimberly Dobbie, 48, in front of her 11-year-old twin boys outside a Lewiston laundromat. He was arrested and charged with murder on Monday upon his release from Central Maine Medical Center, where he had been treated for chest pains after being tackled by passers-by who attempted to aid Dobbie, police said.

Dobbie and Flick were acquainted with each other, but were not romantically involved, state police said. Dobbie’s friends said Flick had been constantly following her and refused to leave her alone.

This alleged assault is the fourth time Flick has been charged with assaulting or killing a woman. He was convicted of the 1979 stabbing death of his wife in Westbrook, a crime for which he served 25 years in prison. He was also charged in 2008 and 2010 with separate attacks on different women. In 2014, during a

The 2010 sentencing was in response to an assault that year on a Portland woman who told police that after arguing with Flick one day in his Brackett Street apartment, Flick grabbed a knife from the kitchen, put her in a headlock and struck her repeatedly with the butt-end of the knife handle.

“If that doesn’t work, I know what will,” Flick said, according to court records.The woman fled the apartment after she knocked the knife from Flick’s hand. Flick then went to find another weapon.

But the woman escaped to her own apartment nearby, where she watched as Flick ran up her driveway with a screwdriver in his hand.

When police found Flick, he had returned to his building and was in the process of committing suicide, according to a police report filed in court. Officers wrote that they found Flick behind his apartment building with a noose around his neck and saw Flick hang himself from his back fire escape. It was roughly three seconds before officers were able to cut him down, but Flick was already unconscious. He was rushed to a hospital where he recovered.

At the time of the 2010 assault, Flick was also on probation for the previous incident in which he attacked a girlfriend in 2008 and then tried to intimidate her and prevent her from testifying against him.That meant that at the 2010 sentencing, Crowley had the power to sentence Flick on two sets of charges: Violating the terms of his probation from the 2008 assault, and the new conduct against the woman who he chased with the screwdriver.

The prosecutor, Katherine Tierney, asked Crowley to fully revoke Flick’s 2008 probation and send him back to prison for 3 years and 11 months, and an additional sentence of four to five years for the new criminal conduct, according to a transcript filed in court.

“I know that the defendant is an older man and that the court and society may think that this individual is going to stop committing crimes, especially crimes against women and violent crimes against women with weapons, but his history has really shown that he’s just not about to do that, and so I think the only appropriate sentence is for significant prison time,” Tierney said. “Clearly, probation is not working. … At this point, I just don’t know what else to do. I think there’s a huge safety risk to women and society when it comes to Mr. Flick. …”

Also present at the sentencing was Troy Thornton, Flick’s probation officer, who argued that Flick’s violent behavior would not stop.

“He’s an extremely violent individual when it comes to relationships,” Thornton said. “He doesn’t appear to have slowed down at this point, and I don’t see him slowing down in the near future.”

Thornton asked the judge to require Flick to inform the probation department of any romantic relationships he has entered into – an unusual request, Thornton said.

Crowley decided to fully revoke Flick’s probation, sending him back to prison for nearly four years. For the 2010 assault, Crowley handed down a three-year suspended sentence with one year of probation upon his release.

But Flick’s trouble with the law did not end there. After his release, Flick and the woman he tried to assault with the screwdriver saw each other on Congress Street in Portland. Flick stared her down and got in her face.

“You’ll get yours,” Flick told her, according to court records.

The woman flagged down a police officer, who found Flick and arrested him. He was later indicted by a Cumberland County grand jury on a charge of felony criminal threatening, but pleaded to a lesser charge of violating his probation.