BIDDEFORD —  Timothy “Tyson” Ortiz, who was acquitted of murder and manslaughter last year in connection with the 2016 death of a Biddeford man was sentenced to slightly more than 7 ½ years in prison during a hearing at U.S. District Court in Portland on Thursday.

Ortiz was sentenced by Judge John A. Woodcock to 92 months in federal prison, followed by three years supervised release.

In imposing the sentence, Judge Woodcock varied upward from the applicable guideline range of 37 to 46 months, noting that the defendant’s criminal history was “disturbing” and the need to protect the public was “obvious.”

Ortiz pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm on Jan. 4.

Ortiz, 25, was prohibited from possessing a firearm as the result of 2016  felony convictions for aggravated sex trafficking and heroin distribution.

According to court documents, on Sept. 26, 2016, Ortiz was involved in an argument over a drug debt that led to him fatally shooting Jonathan Methot using a Ruger, Blackhawk, .357 revolver at a duplex apartment building in Biddeford.

At his murder trial at York County Superior Court in Alfred in June 2018, Ortiz’s attorneys argued that he acted in self-defense after Methot continued to assault him, even after he had fired two shots that missed the victim.

Methot had arrived at the apartment at about 1 a.m., upset about a $40 drug transaction that had taken place earlier, police said.

Ortiz went inside and got involved in the argument. Bystanders told police officers that Methot then put his hands on Ortiz’s neck.

Ortiz fired the .357 Ruger three times. One shot hit a staircase, the second shot hit a door. The third shot struck Methot, who died a short time later.

A woman then drove Ortiz and others from the scene to an apartment in Westbrook, according to the court documents. Later that day, a search warrant was executed there, which turned up a silver Ruger .357 in the suspended ceiling of the bathroom. Witnesses later told authorities it was the same gun Ortiz had used in the shooting.

The case was investigated by the Biddeford Police Department; Maine State Police; the Maine Attorney General’s Office; U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations; the FBI; and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, it was prosecuted as part of Project Safe Neighborhoods, the centerpiece of the Department of Justice’s violent crime reduction efforts.

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 780-9016 or twells@journaltribune.com.
— Executive editor Ed Pierce contributed to this report.