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If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence and would like to talk with an advocate, call 866-834-4357, TTY 1-800-437-1220. This free, confidential service is available 24/7 and is accessible from anywhere in Maine.
Patrisha McLean is the CEO and founder of the survivor-powered nonprofit Finding Our Voices, which is breaking the silence of domestic abuse across Maine. Their 15-stop 2024 Let’s Talk About It Tour includes panel presentations at the Botanical Gardens in Boothbay Harbor on Sept. 11 and Eastern Maine Community College on Oct. 1. The nonprofit is the special beneficiary of the July 13 WestbrookStrong 5K, which honors Matthew Rairdon who was killed in 2013. For more information visit findingourvoices.net.
Twelve years ago in Auburn, a prosecutor apologized to a domestic violence victim who had been punched and stabbed in front of her baby by a 32-year-old man with a long criminal history, saying the state failed in its duty to protect her. The convicted domestic abuser, Leein Hinkley, was ordered to spend 15 years in prison.
That is a release date of 2027.
So why was Hinkley out on the streets in 2024, to commit the alleged domestic violence that had him arrested in May, then released from custody on $1,500 bail to burn what is believed to be his ex-girlfriend’s house to the ground, fight with her significant other (who is still missing) and shoot at police in a fiery stand-off?
“He is the worst of the worst and never should have been out,” Mike Edes of the Maine Fraternal Order of Police said in criticizing Judge Sarah Churchill who lowered Hinkley’s bail.
Gov. Janet Mills said of the situation: “In my view, given the severity of the charges, the defendant’s criminal history and the serious danger he posed, these important, competing interests were not properly balanced in this case.”
But amidst all the finger-pointing, here is something everyone in Maine needs to know: There are a lot of “worsts” when it comes to domestic abusers, and this kind of mishandling of their cases — with seemingly no consideration for the safety of the victims or general public -— happens a lot.
Two women recently talked with me on my WERU radio show “Let’s Talk About It” recently about how officials in Androscoggin and Oxford counties continue to embolden their really scary exes.
Jolene is plagued by a man with a nearly 30-year criminal record that includes rape and domestic violence strangulation.
His most recent crime spree in 2023 started with “trying to run me over with his vehicle in front of the kids.” He bailed out of custody, and that is when “it got bad,” Jolene says, culminating in a high-speed car chase that she says was across multiple towns. His plea deal dismissed the domestic violence assault with priors, with the remaining 12 charges, including seven felonies, netting a prison sentence of three years. Jolene’s district attorney office liaison actually labeled the email informing her of this plea deal: “Good News!”
Bethany is a colleague of the nurse shot dead by her husband in Peru on May 28.
Twenty-eight years ago, Bethany’s ex-husband strangled her and gave her two black eyes, she recalled. The 37-page criminal record he amassed since then includes three domestic violence assault charges, terrorizing with a dangerous weapon and violating probation and her restraining orders 20 times with no meaningful legal consequence.
Bethany says two years ago when she was eating in a restaurant with four children, he barraged her with dozens of text messages plus called the restaurant, “threatening to kill me and the kids, burn down houses, die by police. I took these messages to the Lewiston Police Department and they refused to take a report.” Why, she asks, “is the freedom of domestic abusers more valuable than the people who need to be protected from them?”
Jolene says, “The courts deal with these men repeatedly and they know how dangerous they are, but they still do nothing.”
Edes of the Maine Fraternal Order of Police told a reporter that he does not see the release of Hinkley as a sign the judicial system has failed.
Thousands of Maine women who are the prime targets of homicidal exes will tell you that the judicial system routinely fails them and their children. Until our state’s judges and district attorneys plus law enforcement officials and legislators all recognize the emergency of domestic violence in Maine and commit to bold action holding perpetrators accountable and supporting their victims, the danger to everyone grows every day.