AUGUSTA — A former Chelsea woman will spend a year in prison after being convicted of aggravated assault and theft in connection with an attack in which an accomplice beat a man in the head with a baseball bat in an effort to take his wallet.
Sarah R. Negrete, 32, now of Fairfield, was sentenced last week to five years in prison, with all but the first year suspended, for the May 25, 2014, incident in Augusta that left the victim with a brain injury and post-traumatic stress.
When Negrete is released from prison, she will be on probation for three years. Negrete, whose first name is spelled as “Sara” on some court documents, and a codefendant, Corey Dionne, now 26, were ordered to pay $38 in restitution for the benefit of Jacob Walmer, the victim.
In exchange for Negrete’s guilty pleas, the state dismissed a robbery charge.
Police found evidence on Negrete’s phone that she was setting up Walmer for the attack.
Negrete also is accused more recently of stealing checks and a debit/credit card from an 84-year-old woman in Winslow. Those offenses allegedly occurred while Negrete was free on $10,000 cash bail on the charges relating to the baseball bat attack.
Negrete, who is being held at the Maine Correctional Center in Windham, is scheduled to return to the Capital Judicial Center for a hearing on charges that include one count of misuse of identification, three counts of theft by unauthorized taking and two counts of violating conditions of release, which the state says occurred Sept. 28 to Oct. 7, 2015, in Waterville and Winslow.
In the lead-up to the baseball bat attack, Negrete met Walmer at a nightclub on Water Street in Augusta and asked him to walk her home, according to the police report. When she turned into an alley at the back of her Water Street apartment, Dionne attacked him with the bat, police said.
Walmer spoke at Dionne’s sentencing hearing July 30, 2015, saying he was a two-tour combat veteran who moved to Augusta thinking it was a peaceful place to live. Now he has to live with the results of the attack. Hospital staff told Walmer at the time that he was lucky he had not bled to death, he said.
Dionne is serving four years in prison, and an additional four years of the prison term was suspended. He was ordered to serve three years of probation. The sentence also covers a conviction for aggravated trafficking in heroin.
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