FARMINGTON — A convicted sex offender indicted on new charges of sex crimes is scheduled for trial after not accepting a plea deal Thursday.

John Fahnley, 58, of Madrid Township, is charged with class A gross sexual assault and two charges of class C sexual abuse of a minor.

No plea deal was reached between the state and Fahnley’s lawyer, Assistant District Attorney Joshua Robbins said after a dispositional hearing Thursday morning in Franklin County court.

In cases involving such serious charges, plea deals typically are not reached until closer to the trial date, Robbins said.

Robbins said in Fahnley’s case, as in most cases of gross sexual assault, the charges are based on reports made to police, not on witnesses seeing a crime occur.

“It’s a ‘he said, he said’ type of case,” Robbins said.

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Jury selection for the trial is scheduled for Sept. 16.

Fahnley was arrested in December 2012 after two Massachusetts men, now 19 and 25 years old, told Massachusetts police about the abuse, which occurred when both still were minors. The three charges on which Fahnley was indicted refer to offenses that allegedly occurred in his home on East Madrid Road between 2008 and 2010.

Fahnley became a 10-year registrant on the Maine Sexual Offender Registry in 2003 after he was convicted of the rape and abuse of a Massachusetts child under the age of 16.

Gross sexual assault is punishable by up to 30 years in prison and $30,000 in fines. The two charges of sexual abuse of a minor are punishable by up to five years in prison and $5,000 in fines each, if Fahnley is convicted.

Fahnley was released on $25,000 cash bail.

Kaitlin Schroeder – 861-9252
kschroeder@mainetoday.com


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