PORTLAND

Windham man indicted on 68 sex-crime charges

A grand jury has indicted a Windham man on 68 felony charges alleging that he committed sex crimes from August to October of last year.

Nicholas Gladu, 27, faces one count of unlawful sexual contact and one count of sexual exploitation of a minor. Both crimes are punishable by as much as 30 years in prison.

Gladu also faces a charge of visual sexual aggression against a child under the age of 12 and 65 charges of possession of sexually explicit materials. Those crimes are punishable by as much as five years in prison.

Westbrook police, Windham police, the Maine Computer Crimes Task Force and the Cumberland County District Attorney’s Office worked together on a four-month investigation of Gladu, Westbrook police Lt. Michael Nugent said in a press release Wednesday.

Gladu was indicted last week in Cumberland County Superior Court. He was held in the Cumberland County Jail on $100,000 cash or $500,000 property bail.

AUGUSTA

LePage passes on $31 million bond proposal for nonprofits

Gov. Paul LePage’s conservative fiscal views are putting a chill on a $31 million bond package sponsored by a quasi-state agency.

The Maine Health and Higher Educational Facilities Authority is the agency that educational and health care nonprofits must go through, under federal law, to sell tax-exempt bonds. Unlike general obligation bonds, those don’t require voters’ approval. But the Bangor Daily News says that may be changing.

LePage this month declined to sign a $31 million bond proposal benefiting Husson University, Fryeburg Academy, Colby College and three small hospitals. He and state Treasurer Bruce Poliquin say they won’t sign any bond package that could put the state on the hook should the borrowing institution and the bond-issuing agency be unable to cover it.

BATH

Chief of naval operations to visit shipyard next week

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins says the chief of U.S. naval operations has accepted her invitation to visit Bath Iron Works.

Adm. Gary Roughead and Collins plan to tour the shipyard in Bath on Feb. 23. Roughead last visited the Navy shipbuilder in 2008.

Collins said the admiral has agreed to visit to get an update on ongoing shipyard programs and review improvements to the yard, and to discuss the shipbuilding industrial base and the Navy’s shipbuilding plans this year and into the future.

SOUTH PARIS

Caretaker charged with stealing money from client

A woman who worked as a caretaker has been charged with stealing an undetermined amount of money from a client’s savings account.

Police say Sheila Graves of Stow was arrested at her home and charged with unauthorized taking of less than $1,000. Graves, who worked for Northern Human Services, was arrested by Conway, N.H., police after a report that the money was missing from the victim’s account between October 2009 and last March.

The charge is a misdemeanor, but it carries an enhanced penalty because the victim is 65 or older or has a disability. WMTW-TV reports that Graves is awaiting extradition to New Hampshire.

PORTSMOUTH, N.H.

Advocates push for inclusion of suicide barriers on bridge

Suicide prevention advocates are pressing New Hampshire officials to include suicide barriers in the design for a new bridge linking Portsmouth with Kittery.

Susan Turner, director of the Rockingham County Community Resource Network, Alliance for Community Health, says her group wants the state to include the feature in design specifications, to determine how much it would cost.

The state will consider putting in the barriers as part of the request for proposals, said William Boynton, a spokesman for the New Hampshire Department of Transportation. The state is seeking responses from design-build contractors.

He told the Portsmouth Herald that transportation officials are committed to include reasonable, cost-effective steps to help with pedestrians’ safety on the bridge, which carries Route 1 over the Piscataqua River.

HOULTON

Postal worker charged with stealing veterans’ drugs

A longtime postal employee is charged with stealing prescription drugs that were being mailed to veterans.

Police in Houlton say Joey Skehan, 57, who has been a postal worker for 32 years, was charged Monday after an investigation by police and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

Police Chief Butch Asselin told the Bangor Daily News that Skehan took packages containing medications while sorting the mail in the early morning. The packages were mailed by the Veterans Health Administration to veterans in the Houlton area.

Skehan is free on $2,500 bail. Nobody answered the phone Wednesday at the number listed in Skehan’s name.

— From staff and news services