AUGUSTA — The jury in the attempted murder trial of Jeremy Clement has found the Fairfield man guilty of all four charges of attempted murder, burglary, aggravated assault and assault.

Clement showed no emotion when the verdicts were read.

The 12-person jury deliberated for about six hours before delivering their final verdict on all four charges. At one point in their deliberations, they reported that they had reached a verdict on three of the four charges against Clement, but had yet to decide on the attempted murder charge. Justice William Stokes ordered them to continue to deliberate.

Stokes released the jury just after 6 p.m.

Jasmine Caret, who had been shot by Clement, her mother, Roseanna, and her grandmother, May, were not present for the reading of the verdict, though they had been present during different parts of the trial.

Stokes also entered into the verdict a count of possession of a firearm, which the jury had not been tasked with deliberating. Since Clement had admitted during testimony to having the gun, Stokes said it was not unreasonable to add the charge into the verdict. Because of prior crimes, Clement was not supposed to have a firearm, the judge said, remarking, “I do find that to be beyond a reasonable doubt.”

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Sentencing has been scheduled for 1 p.m. June 25. Clement, whose bail had been previously set at $500,000, is being held without bail since he was found guilty.

Following the conclusion of the trial, Assistant District Attorney Michael Madigan had no comment, other than “the jury did their job.”

Clement’s defense attorney, Walter McKee, said, “Jeremy was disappointed. He was adamant from day one he never meant to shoot Jasmine.”

Attorneys for the prosecution and the defense delivered their closing arguments Wednesday morning, outlining competing stories of what happened April 19, 2017, the date police say he drove a four-wheeler to the Caret house in Oakland, kicked in the door, got into an altercation with Roseanna Caret after asking to talk to her daughter, Jasmine Caret, and then shot Jasmine Caret.

He pleaded not guilty to the charges in October 2017.

In his closing, Assistant District Attorney Michael Madigan said Clement knowingly and intentionally went to the Caret home to kill Jasmine as evidenced by the moments leading up to and following the shooting. Madigan said the timeline shows Clement got his gun, went to the Oakland home, and shot Jasmine, fully intending to kill her.

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“He didn’t go inside to kill himself. He didn’t go there with one bullet. He went there with a magazine,” Madigan told the jury.

Frequently Madigan said “he wasn’t done,” in regard to Clement’s actions. The prosecutor argued that Clement kept taking steps toward killing Jasmine Caret.

“Once you have reviewed this evidence, that common thread is he intended to kill, and he put one hell of an effort into doing it that night,” he said. “The evidence matches.”

Madigan dismissed the defense argument that Clement’s intent was to kill himself in front of Jasmine Caret, pointing out that Clement didn’t come up with that story until an hour after the shooting.

He also refuted Clement’s claim that being hit in the head with a baseball bat by Jasmine’s mother Roseanna made the gun go off. He said the bat did not make the gun go off; Clement did when he put the gun to Jasmine Caret’s chest and pulled the trigger. He said Clement’s claims that the gun was pointed away from Jasmine and into the nearby closet were false, based on the wound and where the bullet hit the wall.

Moreover, he said Clement’s claims that he did not want to hurt Jasmine Caret were also false, because it wasn’t until after midnight that day that he finally asked how she was doing after being shot.

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“The moment he pulls the trigger is defined by the moments leading up to it and the moments after,” Madigan said.

Clement sat expressionless during the arguments, as he had done throughout the trial, with the exception of when he testified on Tuesday. During that time, he did get choked up when answering questions.

McKee argued that the state had not demonstrated that Clement was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Clement was clearly suicidal, he said, as evidenced by Jasmine’s call to police to conduct a welfare check on him that day.

The defense attorney questioned the testimony provided by state witnesses, including Jasmine, Roseanna and May Caret. He said the state’s witnesses provided “a troubling amount of inaccurate information.”

Jasmine testified she had been shot point blank, despite there being no evidence of that, McKee said. He held up the ripped and bloody shirt Jasmine had been wearing when she was shot, and said there were no signs of burning from the gun’s muzzle, which would have been there had she been shot point blank.

Jasmine Caret lied under oath in previous statements about drinking the day she was shot, McKee said. She had said she wasn’t drinking initially, because she had gone through a detox program. However, on Monday, Jasmine Caret said she had been drinking that day. McKee said this was proof her testimony was unreliable, and both she and Clement testified they suffered from alcohol addiction.

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He said to the jury that Jasmine Caret is “not someone you should trust.”

McKee said the state could not prove all the evidence, including the fact there were no photos of Jasmine Caret’s injuries taken after she was shot. Because of this, the state couldn’t prove where she was standing, if Clement was holding her down and whether he had the gun pressed against her.

McKee said Clement was depressed because his children had been taken away from him. The day before, Clement testified he lost custody of his three children, including the son he had with Caret, after he called the Department of Health and Human Services about Caret’s drinking problem. He said DHHS then looked at his drinking problem and took his children. McKee said Clement was facing the prospect of not having custody of his children again and felt hopeless. He said it was not out of the ordinary for someone in Clement’s predicament to feel suicidal.

“Him being suicidal is not in dispute,” McKee said.

McKee said after being struck from behind with the baseball bat, which caused a large cut on Clement’s head and resulted in a large amount of blood loss, “anything could happen.”

“It was no little hit to the head, this was a big hit,” McKee said. “He got splayed open.”

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In the end, the jury voted with Madigan’s assertion: “The bat did not make this gun go off, Jeremy did.”

Colin Ellis — 861-9253

cellis@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @colinoellis

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