Monday, May 21, 2012
SUPERIOR COURT
By Betty Adams badams@centralmaine.com
Staff Writer
AUGUSTA — Leo Rose Hylton, 19, was sentenced Friday to 90 years in prison — with all but 50 years suspended and 15 years’ probation — for a pre-dawn machete attack on a sleeping household that left a father and daughter maimed.
William Guerrette III, left, hugs his sister Nicole Guerrette after he testified at a sentencing hearing for Leo Rose Hylton on Friday in Kennebec County Superior Court in Augusta. Leo Rose Hylton, 19, of Augusta, will serve 50 years in prison for the May 2008 machete attack in Pittson, that left Nicole and her father, William Guerrette, seriously injured.
Staff photo by Joe Phelan
William Guerrette reaches out with his left hand that is missing a finger, to comfort his daughter Nicole Guerrette during a sentencing hearing Friday in Kennebec County Superior Court in Augusta. Leo Rose Hylton, 19, of Augusta, will serve 50 years in prison for the May 2008 machete attack in Pittson that left the pair seriously injured. Ryan Guerrette, center, looks on.
Joe Phelan
Hylton had pleaded guilty nine months ago to three counts of attempted murder for the May 2008 attack in Pittston on former legislator William Guerrette Jr. and his daughter, Nicole, then 10.
Hylton also will serve time for his guilty pleas on robbery and burglary charges in connection with the attack.
The sentenced imposed Friday by Justice Nancy Mills in Kennebec County Superior Court was identical to that sought by the prosecution.
“There’s only a few defendants who come into court where a judge truly feels that she is standing between the people of Maine and a violent, dangerous predator,” Mills said. “And that’s how I feel today.”
Mills said Hylton had provided so many different versions of what happened she chose to believe the facts presented at his guilty plea.
She quoted Hylton’s words from a police walk-through of the crime scene videotaped several days after the attack:
“I just kept swinging. I just kept hitting him at different angles, and you know what I thought? I thought, you know, he was done.”
On the tape, Hylton estimated he struck William Guerrette 15 times and Nicole five times, Mills said.
The 6-foot-6 Hylton spoke to the Guerrettes directly on Friday, apologizing to all of them, and to his own family.
“I sincerely apologize to every member of your family, both immediate and extended,” he said. “I can’t imagine the levels of hell you’ve been through.”
He said the events that night haunt him.
“I’ve been trapped in a personal purgatory,” Hylton said. “The second I lay down at night is the second the demons attack.”
He and several of his friends and family said he had planned to pursue a career in psychology so he could work with teens in foster care. Hylton told the judge he received his General Educational Development certificate in jail on Thursday, and that he helps those in jail make the best of their situation.
Given the opportunity to address the court Friday, Hylton told the judge he had lied to almost everyone — including her — for the past 20 months about the home invasion.
Then he described his own version of the events.
Hylton said he didn’t hurt anyone, but had merely failed to stop the crime being perpetrated by his foster brother, Daniel L. Fortune, now 22.
Hylton and Fortune shared an apartment in Augusta at the time of the attack, and Hylton told the court Friday he loved Fortune and had been willing to take the blame for his crimes.
Fortune had been charged with stealing more than $100,000 in cash and historic currency from the Guerrette home after an unauthorized party at that residence in November 2007. He was scheduled to stand trial for that offense, but failed to turn up for jury selection.
Fortune has since pleaded not guilty to the theft charge, as well as to four counts of aggravated attempted murder; two counts each of elevated aggravated assault and violation of condition of release; and one count each of attempted murder, robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery and failure to appear.
Hylton said Friday that, on the night of the attack, he stole his aunt’s car at Fortune’s request, believing they were going to make some kind of drug deal. He told the court he didn’t recognize the Guerrette home because he had never been there before, and only entered the house to find out what happened after the burglar alarm sounded.
He said he saw Fortune strike both the father and daughter repeatedly.
But Deputy District Attorney Alan Kelley disputed Hylton’s latest version of events, and the judge rejected them as well.
Kelley said Friday the crimes were premeditated and aimed at William Guerrette so he wouldn’t be able to testify at Fortune’s theft trial.
Kelley said Fortune had told authorities after his arrest they had gone to the Guerrettes’ “to shut the old man up,” and that Hylton told one witness he attacked the Guerrettes because he loved Fortune and didn’t want to see him go to jail for theft.
William Guerrette and Nicole Guerrette, who was 10 when the attack occurred, both spoke at Friday’s sentencing, telling the judge of their injuries and their struggles to recover.
Many of the 75-plus people in the courtroom were in tears as they listened to them.
The two have endured multiple surgeries and carry scars from the machete attacks. Both now live with permanent brain injuries.
William Guerrette pointed to his left arm and the back of his head, showing the judge where he was struck with the machete. He lost a finger on his left hand, and he had 17 fractures in that arm as he fought off the blow, he said.
“I woke up and I had to learn to talk all over again,” Nicole Guerrette told the judge. “Now, things that used to come easy to me are now hard.”
She said she remembers seeing a man run up the stairs to hit her with a machete after she heard her father screaming in the hallway that morning.
“What happened to me doesn’t seem fair,” she said.
The Guerrettes’ oldest son, William Guerrette III, said he and his wife had to quit college and move back home to help the family after the attack.
He said his father has problems staying awake and his sister has problems sleeping.
“Nobody has the power to take away the sentence that Mr. Hylton has imposed on our family,” he said.
Melanie Guerrette told the court she is now the main caregiver for both her husband and her daughter, and will never forget the screams she heard that night.
She said she jumped from a bathroom window and ran through the woods to seek help at a neighbor’s the night of the attack. She said her older daughter, Ashley, hid under her bed and her son, Ryan, escaped and hid out back.
It was more than three hours before Melanie Guerrette knew that everyone in her home had survived, but that her husband and younger daughter were critically injured.
“I was told that they were going to die, both of them,” she told the court.
Friends and family of Hylton spoke Friday as well, telling the judge that he could be too helpful. They all offered their apologies and sympathy to the Guerrettes.
Daniel Fortune’s father, William Fortune, who was also Hylton’s stepfather for a time, said, “I am truly sorry.”
He said the crimes should never have happened.
“These crimes (Hylton) was involved with were with my son Dan Fortune, who I believe is truly behind this,” William Fortune said.
About Hylton, he said: “His loyalty to Dan Fortune is so misguided.”
Pamela Ames, Fortune’s attorney, watched Hylton’s sentencing hearing. Fortune’s next court appearance is set for March.
Spectators were cleared from the courtroom prior to Hylton being shackled with chains around the waist and led away under tight security. He will serve his sentence in state prison.
Betty Adams — 621-5631
badams@centralmaine.com
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 click image to enlarge
Leo Rose Hylton, 19, of Augusta, Maine, is led out of Kennebec County Superior Court this morning in Augusta. He will serve 50 years in prison for the May 2008 machete attack in Pittson, Maine that left a father and daughter seriously injured. Staff photo by Joe Phelan |
 click image to enlarge
William Guerrette points at his injured left arm and hand that is missing a finger during a sentencing hearing on Friday in Kennebec County Superior Court in Augusta. Leo Rose Hylton, 19, of Augusta, will serve 50 years in prison for the May 2008 machete attack in Pittson,that left a Guerrette and his daughter seriously injured. Joe Phelan |
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