AUGUSTA — The defense attorney told a judge on Monday there’s no evidence tying Scott Bubar to any weapons used in a shootout with police that left his father dead in his trailer in Belgrade on May 19, 2017.
Bubar, 41, of Brunswick, is accused of aggravated attempted murder of Kennebec Sheriff Office Deputy Sgt. Jacob Pierce that night.
The prosecutor at Bubar’s trial Monday said Pierce returned fire after seeing through a window a muzzle flash from a shotgun held by a man wearing a green T-shirt.
Assistant District Attorney Alisa Ross held up both the green shirt that had Scott Bubar’s blood on it as well as the red shirt found on Roger Bubar, 65, that night. She used those exhibits during her opening statement in the non-jury trial of Scott Bubar at the Capital Judicial Center.
She said Pierce and Deputy Adam Bacon went to the door of the trailer that night. “Sgt. Pierce knocked and announced ‘Sheriff’s Office,'” initially getting no response until he repeated his actions. Then the men inside the trailer told them to leave immediately.
“Get out of here. We don’t want you here. Get out of here,” she said the officers recounted.
One man told them, “I will (expletive) shoot you; I have a shotgun,” Ross said, and the officers heard someone loading a shotgun, so they retreated.
Bubar was also indicted on a charge of reckless conduct with a dangerous weapon in connection with the same incident. The trial is on a two-day break Tuesday and Wednesday, and is scheduled to resume 8:30 a.m. Thursday.
Defense expert witnesses are expected to testify early next week.
Lisa Whittier, one of Bubar’s defense attorneys, said that in interviews with police, “Scott Bubar is steadfast that he did nothing but try to stop his father from shooting those firearms. He tried unsuccessfully to get those firearms out of his father’s hands.”
She told Justice Michaela Murphy, “The defense contends that the worst mistake of Scott Bubar’s life was leaving his apartment in Brunswick and spending the day with his father, Roger, on May 19 of 2017.”
Whittier said Roger Bubar drove his red Mustang to Brunswick to pick up his son, Scott.
She said a 12-gauge shotgun was found under Roger Bubar’s body in the hallway of the trailer and a 9-millimeter pistol was found nearby in the hallway. Whittier also said that in initial interviews, Pierce said he saw a man in a red shirt after the muzzle flash when he returned fire.
“He now recalls seeing a man in a green shirt after the muzzle flash,” Whittier said, “That’s a very significant departure from what Sgt. Pierce said hours after the event to now, 16 months later.”
Whittier said Roger Bubar owned both firearms, and that both had been seized by police in August 2008 and then returned to him at the end of that year.
“The physical evidence, the science, the DNA says Scott Bubar did not fire either weapon,” she said.
Whittier said that in order to convict Scott Bubar, the state needs to prove who was firing the weapons and that the shooter intended to kill Pierce, a police officer.
Police were called to Roger Bubar’s trailer by a series of complaints by neighbors reporting squealing tires, a red Mustang hitting the trailer and screaming voices.
Pierce, who was the first officer on the scene, reported hearing a male voice from inside the trailer say that they were “going out in a blaze of glory,” Ross said.
Bubar, who is being held at the Kennebec County jail, wore a dark jacket and tie over a white dress shirt. He was in shackles, with a chain wrapped around his waist, and shuffled from a side door to sit at the defense table in the courtroom.
Opening statements by attorneys were watched by one woman in addition to members of the media and Kennebec County Sheriff Ken Mason.
The initial witnesses called by the state, all neighbors of Roger Bubar and his girlfriend, Jenny Shorey, described hearing loud male voices and gunshots — two apparently before police arrived — as well as police sirens that night. Several of them called police. The witnesses walked over to a large monitor to point to the location of their homes on a large aerial view of the neighborhood.
One neighbor, Joshua Worcester, testified, “I did hear one (arguer) say that they were going to call the cops. The other one said, “‘Go ahead and call the cops.'”
He said he and his wife were worried about his family’s safety that night.
“When we first moved there Roger Bubar was in an armed standoff with police,” Worcester said.
The defense played a 911 audio record of Aletha “Ali” Short calling for help. “We have a crazy neighbor that drove his car into his house,” Short says, adding that she was afraid for her own vehicles in her driveway.
“They’re both so drunk, and now he’s coming over here,” she continued.
On the witness stand, Short testified that Scott Bubar drove the car into the side of the trailer. She said she could see what was happening because there were floodlights on the front of Bubar’s trailer.
Roger Bubar was struck three times by bullets from Pierce’s firearm and died at the scene, and Scott Bubar was hit once in the abdomen. One witness described seeing Scott Bubar crawling out of the trailer under police orders hours after the shooting stopped.
Betty Adams — 621-5631
Twitter: @betadams
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