By Stephen Betts
Bangor Daily News
ROCKLAND, Maine — A 37-year-old Maine State Prison inmate pleaded guilty Monday morning to murdering another prisoner by stabbing him 87 times.
Richard A. Stahursky pleaded guilty to murder during a hearing held in Knox County Unified Court in Rockland.
A charge of attempted murder in which Stahursky allegedly planned to kill a corrections officer will be dropped, as will a charge of possession of a homemade knife known as a shank.
He is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 10 in Rockland. The minimum mandatory sentence in Maine for murder is 25 years. There is no agreement on a sentence.
In January, to the charges. Jury selection was scheduled to begin Monday in Knox County.
Defense attorney Philip Cohen said Monday that his client agreed to plead guilty and have the charge of trying to kill a prison guard dropped in hopes that he will be transferred to a state prison in another state or a federal prison. He said the chances of a transfer are greater without the conviction for threatening the guard.
A police affidavit filed with the court stated that Stahursky stabbed fellow prisoner Micah Boland 87 times and beat him in Boland’s cell at the Maine State Prison in Warren on Feb. 28, 2014.
Stahursky said he sought out Boland after conducting his own investigation within the prison to find out who had made allegations that he improperly passed items from one prison pod to another living area. Stahursky said the false allegations cost him his job as a hallway worker.
When he was apprehended in connection with Boland’s death, prison officials say Stahursky had another homemade knife and had labeled it as the weapon he was going to use to kill a specific corrections officer.
Stahursky 2014.
He to nearly 20 years in prison for an armed robbery of a Mainway convenience store in Fort Fairfield. At the time of that robbery, he also was wanted by police in Connecticut on a larceny charge.
He was convicted of two separate stabbings of inmates with shanks prior to 2012 and for arson in 2004 for setting a fire at the prison.
Stahursky was sentenced to an additional eight years in prison for assaulting a guard. At that time, Stahursky asked Justice Jeffrey Hjelm to impose the maximum 10 years.
Boland had served six years of a 22-year sentence imposed in 2008 in Waldo County Superior Court for gross sexual assault against a 4-year-old girl in Liberty.
Assistant Attorney General John Alsop prosecuted the case.
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