LEWISTON — A former Bates College student from Oregon was fined $400 Wednesday for a 2014 assault that left an 82-year-old man with a broken hip and other injuries.

Mac Jackson, now 24, pleaded guilty to charges of assault and criminal trespass. Additional charges, including a count of aggravated assault, were dropped as part of a two-year-old deal.

On April 16, 2014, police went to a home on White Street, near the Bates campus, for a report of a burglary in progress.

When they arrived, police said, they saw Jackson standing next to a table in the kitchen. Wet from rain, he had no shirt on and was missing a shoe.

An 82-year-old man was lying on the kitchen floor in pain, according to court documents. The homeowner said he had been working on his taxes when someone began knocking on his door. He responded and ordered Jackson to leave. Jackson refused and began hitting the window on the door. The man eventually opened the door for Jackson so he would not injure his hand, according to police.

When Jackson entered the home, he pushed the man to the floor, police said. The man was taken by ambulance to a Lewiston hospital, where police were told he had a broken hip and would need surgery.

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Police said Jackson was “highly intoxicated” at the time and was not able to identify himself. He told police he was a Bates student and was just trying to find his way home, mistakenly believing he had arrived.

Four months after his arrest, Jackson denied the charges against him in Androscoggin County Superior Court. Later, in December of 2015, he pleaded guilty to a charge of aggravated criminal trespass, with a deal that allowed him to withdraw the plea after two years, at which point he would plead instead to a pair of misdemeanors.

Court officials said Jackson benefited a great deal from the fact that the victim of the assault did not want Jackson punished to the extent that it would ruin his chance to build a future for himself.

At the time of the attack, Jackson was a biology major and football team captain at Bates. In 2012, he was named All-New England First Team Specialist by the New England Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association.

A Bates spokesman said Jackson dropped out of Bates shortly after the incident.

Walter McKee, Jackson’s lawyer, said at the earlier court hearing that his client remembered only leaving a bar that night, then waking up in jail.

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“For a significant period of time, he had no idea really what was going on or what he had done,” McKee said in court.

After leaving Bates, Jackson returned to Oregon, where he underwent substance-abuse and psychological counseling, McKee said. Jackson also worked for a year, then enrolled at a college on the West Coast.

“Mr. Jackson is on the right track,” McKee said.

The victim of the assault died in 2015.


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