SKOWHEGAN — A close friend of Andrew Maderios’ former girlfriend testified Wednesday that she received text messages from the woman in January, February and July saying she’d been hurt by Maderios.

When the friend went to the home the woman shared with Maderios, at the time a Nokomis High School music teacher, the friend found her crying and shaking, she testified Wednesday in the third day of Maderios’ trial in Somerset County Superior Court on nine counts of domestic violence abuse.

But Maderios, 29, of Pittsfield, who took the stand in his own defense later in the day, said he never strangled his girlfriend, but that she was the aggressor and told him if he ever left her, she’d ruin his life, his career and his future.

“She said, ‘If you ever ask me to leave, I will accuse you of abusing me’ and call my (school district) superintendent and cause me to lose my job, and she was going to ruin my life,'” Maderios testified.

Maderios wept on the stand Wednesday as he described how his former live-in girlfriend would tell him he was not a good father figure to her two girls and that he was not even a good teacher. He wept as he told the jury how his accuser would call his mother an alcoholic, his father a fake and his sister a crazy woman. He said he never strangled the woman, never put his hands on her except to defend himself from her attacks.

“There was no first time. There was no second time. There was no any time,” he said of the beatings and strangulations alleged by the woman in a nine-count indictment against him.

Advertisement

In fact, Maderios said, he was on a couch watching TV on July 4, 2014, when the woman dialed 911, waving the phone in the air, saying, “Help. Help. I need help right now,” he said under direct examination by defense attorney Caleigh Milton, an assistant to Maderios’ lead attorney, Leonard Sharon.

Maderios is accused of subjecting his then-girlfriend to months of abuse before he was arrested in August 2014 as he stepped off an airplane in Georgia on a return trip from a student educational tour of Europe. He spent 11 days in a Georgia jail before being brought back to Maine to face the charges against him.

The friend of the accuser testified for the prosecution Wednesday morning in the jury trial, which is expected to last until the end of the week.

“She was sitting on the stairs crying, shaking, choking. She was a mess, actually,” the friend testified Wednesday. “Her voice was raspy, choking. It was hard for her to get a word out.”

The friend told the court on Wednesday that the woman’s clothing “was all pulled” and there were puffy red lines on her neck and throat after one of the woman’s calls to her for help. She said Maderios followed them to the finished basement of Maderios’ Pittsfield home on one occasion, then stomped and banged his way angrily back upstairs.

The live-in girlfriend, whom the Morning Sentinel is not identifying because the state regards her as the victim of a crime, said she was humiliated and scared by the abuse, some of which she captured in audio recordings on her iPhone. She said the abuse continued for months until she secured a protection order against Maderios in August 2014.

Advertisement

On Dec. 26, 2013, she locked herself in their home’s bathroom after a disagreement, the woman testified Monday.

She said Maderios used a metal rod, like a skewer, to pop the lock on the door and strangled her until she passed out. When she woke up, she tried to call 911, but Maderios allegedly smashed the phone and she attempted to run away.

Maderios allegedly became so enraged the day after Christmas that he strangled her with both hands until she vomited on the floor of the home the couple shared in Pittsfield, District Attorney Maeghan Maloney said in her opening statements Monday.

Maderios, 29, cleaned up the mess with a pair of his dirty boxer shorts, then stuffed the shorts in the woman’s mouth, Maloney said.

The abuse allegedly continued into the following day, Dec. 27, when Maderios allegedly told the woman to “take your last breath, because you are going to die,” she testified Monday.

She testified that Maderios also threatened to kill her children and feared that if she called police, he would easily make bail and come back to hurt her and the children.

Advertisement

“He said he would kill my children if I left,” she said in court Monday.

“He said I made him do these things to me,” the woman told the jury of eight men and seven woman, including three alternates.

Maderios denied every accusation Wednesday, saying that the audio recordings were a setup. He said he was on the other side of a room when the woman recorded her leg and ankle being bruised, was “several feet away” when she recorded being strangled, yelling “ow, ow, ow,” he testified.

He said it was his then-girlfriend who “snapped and came at me” several times over the period, scratching him and throwing things at him, then falsely claiming she was the one being abused.

In Tuesday’s testimony, defense attorney Sharon said that Maderios’ former girlfriend planned since January 2014 to accuse Maderios falsely of abuse. He said he never told police of the abuse he suffered because he feared no one would believe that a man was being abused by a woman.

The prosecution and the defense team both disagreed on the value of the iPhone photos of the alleged abuse and the audio recordings. Maloney said the jury ultimately would decide which side was telling the truth.

Advertisement

Sharon said Maderios has no criminal history.

Maderios was put on paid leave from his job at Nokomis High School at the time of his arrest in August 2014, but he is now on unpaid leave, according to Regional School Unit 19 officials. He is free on $10,000 cash bond after pleading not guilty to the charges against him.

The trial is set to resume at 8:30 a.m. Thursday.

Doug Harlow — 612-2367

dharlow@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @Doug_Harlow


Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.