AUGUSTA — An Augusta woman who has done prison time for stabbing people previously will serve three more years in prison for taking a swing at a man with a hatchet.
Annmarie A. Meserve
Annmarie A. Meserve, 48, was sentenced to five years in prison, with all but three years suspended, after pleading guilty Friday to charges of domestic violence criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon, domestic violence assault and violating conditions of release.
Meserve, on Sept. 7, 2019, got into an argument with a man, with whom she had a domestic relationship, during which the man went into the bathroom of an Augusta residence. When he emerged, she swung at him with what the victim described as a hatchet, according to state prosecutor Assistant District Attorney Michael Madigan.
The man sustained a scratch or abrasion on his back, which the victim told police was a result of her swinging the hatchet at him. The man was bleeding when officers arrived, Madigan said.
Meserve said in court Friday she did not scratch the victim “… with the ax, I scratched him with my fingernails.”
Her attorney, Lisa Whittier, said the evidence suggested the scratch was more consistent with a fingernail than an ax.
Justice Michaela Murphy said how the scratch occurred doesn’t matter, because the action that resulted in it — whether by hatchet or fingernail — was enough to satisfy the charge of domestic violence assault.
Augusta police officers responding to the Mill Street incident found a hatchet in the grass.
Madigan said the victim “expressed extreme concern of her swinging the hatchet.”
On Dec. 21, 2007, on Eastern Avenue in Augusta, Meserve stabbed a man in his back with a steak knife during an altercation involving a number of people who were intoxicated. She ended up spending five years in prison for that offense because she was on probation at the time for a stabbing that had occurred Feb. 25, 2007, in Cumberland County.
In August 2015, Meserve was sentenced to two years in prison on a charge of criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon after pleading guilty to threatening a woman with a knife.
In the new charges, she was charged with violating conditions of release for contacting the victim, in violation of the terms of her bail. An additional charge of violating conditions of release was dismissed.
She will be on probation for two years, with conditions including she not use or possess alcohol or illegal drugs, not possess firearms or other dangerous weapons, which Murphy noted includes hatchets, that she submit to drug testing, that she have no contact with the victim and she attend a certified batterers intervention program.
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