GARDINER — A local man accused of breaking his girlfriend’s ribs and stabbing her during a two-day rampage made his first appearance Monday in Kennebec County Superior Court.

David F. Dineen, 49, is charged with two counts of aggravated assault. Justice Michaela Murphy set Dineen’s bail at $35,000 cash. Dineen was being held Monday afternoon at the Kennebec County jail.

Dineen’s bail conditions prohibit him from contacting the victim or her two sons, both of whom were present during at least some of the alleged assaults.

The Kennebec Journal is withholding the victim’s name because she is the alleged victim of a domestic violence assault.

The woman told police she suffered two days of beatings, which resulted in two broken ribs, a punctured lung and a stab wound to one of her legs, according to an affidavit filed by police Officer Allen Alexander in Kennebec County Superior Court.

Alexander interviewed the victim Saturday night at MaineGeneral Medical Center in Augusta, where she was being treated for her injuries. She told him she and Dineen began arguing around 5 p.m. Thursday at their Highland Avenue home after he learned she had cheated on him.

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Alexander said the victim was “covered from head to toe with bruises from the assault she received from David.”

The woman said Dineen threw her down two flights of stairs.

“David started hitting her with his fists, kicking her and then picked up some loose flooring and struck her with that,” Alexander said. “(The victim) said the assault stopped some time Friday morning when he got tired.”

The woman told police Dineen refused to let her leave and took her and her two sons to a Bangor motel, where they argued again over the same issue, and Dineen started hitting her again, Alexander said. The woman said she tried to run away, but Dineen grabbed her by the hair and pulled her back into the room. She said they left the motel that afternoon and continued to argue on the drive back to Gardiner.

“(She) said that David pulled over on the side of the road several times and struck her in the stomach and face,” Alexander said. “(She) said at one point on the way back, David got so mad that he took a pair of scissors that he kept in the truck and stabbed her in the left thigh.”

The woman said she did not try to run because her children were inside the truck.

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The woman said they returned to Dineen’s landscaping business, Mid-Maine Nursery & Landscape Co., where she changed out of her blood-soaked pants and threw them in the trash.

The woman said she couldn’t get away from Dineen until Saturday, when she assured him she wouldn’t call the police.

She called her mother to pick her up, but Dineen prevented her from leaving until her mother threatened to call police, Alexander said.

Murphy told Dineen he faces up to 10 years in prison for each aggravated assault charge. Assistant District Attorney Q. Patricia Kelley said during Dineen’s hearing, which occurred via video, that his criminal history includes two additional assault charges. 

Dineen’s attorney, Brian Condon, said the assault convictions occurred 10 years ago. Condon argued that Dineen is not a threat to the general public, but Murphy denied a request for lower bail and surety bail, citing Dineen’s history and the severity of the victim’s injuries.

 

Craig Crosby — 621-5642

ccrosby@centralmaine.com


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