Kevin Bennett | BDN
Scott Peavey appears via video conference at the Penobscot Judicial Center in Bangor on Tuesday in relation to a charge of hitting a toddler in a parked car while at a local hospital.
BANGOR, Maine — A Carmel man accused of hitting a toddler in a car parked outside St. Joseph Hospital on Friday afternoon, inflicting bruises on her face and cutting open her lip, made his first court appearance Tuesday afternoon at the Penobscot Judicial Center.
Scott Peavey, 30, who was arrested about 4 p.m. Saturday and charged with assault on a child under the age of 6, a Class C crime, did not enter a plea.
Superior Court Justice William Anderson set bail at $3,000 cash or $15,000 surety. Peavey has been held without bail at the Penobscot County Jail since his arrest.
Bail conditions include no contact with the child and no use or possession of drugs or alcohol.
Peavey remained Tuesday night at the Penobscot County Jail unable to make bail.
A report was made to a St. Joseph Hospital security officer Friday that a man was striking a small child in a vehicle outside the hospital, which is located between Broadway and Center Street in Bangor.
The witness did not leave his name with the security guard, according to Bangor police. He did contact police Monday night after investigators asked potential witnesses to come forward, Tracy Lacher, Penobscot County assistant district attorney, told Anderson on Tuesday.
“The witness said that he backhanded the child with six or seven quick blasts,” Anderson said after reading a police report on the interview with the witness.
Peavey was arrested at Eastern Maine Medical Center, where he and the child’s mother, who has not been charged, had taken the girl for treatment, the prosecutor said.
“Police described Peavey and the child’s mother as intoxicated,” Lacher told Anderson.
The child was treated and then released, she said, but the treating physician described the child’s injuries as “abusive.”
Reading from documents provided by the district attorney’s office, Anderson said the 14-month-old “suffered a black eye, black and blue ear and fat lip.”
Lacher said after the hearing that the Department of Health and Human Services had been informed of the child’s injuries. She said that as far as she knew the child remained with her mother.
Lacher asked Anderson to set bail at $5,000 cash.
Peavey said through the lawyer of the day, Dennis Hamrick of Bangor, that he could not afford such a high bail. Hamrick asked that Peavey be released on $50,000 unsecured bail.
A Scott Peavey with the same birth date as the man arrested Saturday is listed on the Maine Sex Offender Registry. He was convicted in Newport District Court in 2003 of sexual abuse of a minor, a misdemeanor, which requires him to register as a sex offender for 10 years.
Lacher told Anderson on Tuesday that Peavey was convicted of that crime in 2003.
Hamrick said Peavey was sentenced to six months with all but five days suspended.
Sexual abuse of a minor is defined as engaging in a sexual act with another person between the ages of 14 and 16 when the accused is older than 19 and at least five years older than the victim.
The sex offender website, which is maintained by the state, does not say what sentence was imposed. The penalty for the Class D crime is up to a year in prison and a fine of up to $2,000.
If convicted of an assault on the child, Peavey faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $5,000.
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