Plea deal reached in Southwest Harbor fatal hit-and-run
by Bill Trotter/Bangor Daily News
ELLSWORTH—A Bar Harbor man has reached a plea agreement with prosecutors for a case in which he ran over and killed a woman with his truck.
John Holdsworth, 32, is expected to spend at least nine months behind bars on felony convictions for driving to endanger and leaving the scene of an accident involving death, according to a court document that details the plea agreement.
Holdsworth is accused of running over Amber Robbins, 35, of Tremont, as he drove his Ford pickup along Route 102 in Southwest Harbor on the night of June 10, 2023. He did not stop at the scene and later told a friend he thought he might have hit a deer as he was driving north past the IGA supermarket towards Somesville.
Robbins, a mother of two girls, was found by two bicyclists the next morning, dead in the ditch on the northbound side of the road. Holdsworth contacted police after her body was found to tell them he might have hit her while driving back to Bar Harbor after attending a party in Southwest Harbor.
Aside from damage the collision caused to the vehicle, police later found Robbins’ DNA and fibers from her sandal on the side of Holdsworth’s truck.
In addition to the two felonies, Holdsworth will plead to misdemeanor charges of falsifying evidence and failing to report an accident. He also will admit to a civil charge of committing a motor vehicle infraction resulting in someone’s death.
The Hancock County District Attorney’s office will dismiss charges of manslaughter, aggravated assault and reckless conduct with a dangerous weapon, each of which is a felony that could result in prison sentences of five years or more. Prosecutors also plan to dismiss a misdemeanor driving to endanger charge.
The agreement calls for an overall sentence of four years behind bars with all but nine months suspended, plus two years of probation upon his release, and a $500 fine. If Holdsworth violates the terms of his probation after his release, he could be sent to prison for more than three years.
Holdsworth is scheduled to enter the agreed-upon plea and be sentenced on Jan. 30 in Ellsworth. It will be up to the presiding judge whether to accept the agreement.
Hancock County District Attorney Bob Granger and Robert Van Horn, Holdsworth’s defense attorney, agree that certain aspects of the case would have generated conflicting arguments to the jury about Holdsworth’s degree of guilt.
Police did not get a timely blood sample from Holdsworth after the crash, so there is no evidence of whether he might have been impaired at the time, and Van Horn said he was prepared to call an expert witness who would have testified that Robbins was walking in the travel lane—in the dark and facing away from traffic—when she was hit.
Granger wrote in his memo that even if Holdsworth thought he hit a deer, the law required him to not leave the scene of an accident. Holdsworth drove to Bar Harbor after striking Robbins at speeds of nearly 90 miles per hour and later returned to the scene, before Robbins’ body was found, to retrieve part of his truck that had come off in the collision, the prosecutor wrote.
Robbins was still lying in the ditch when he returned to the scene with a friend, though there is no indication that they saw Robbins when they did. Robbins possibly might have survived if Holdsworth “had stopped and rendered immediate aid or summoned medical help” after the collision, Granger wrote in the memo.
Granger declined Friday to comment further on the plea agreement.
Van Horn said Friday that although Holdsworth knew he had hit something and he did drive away, his client had no reason to think he had struck a person until Robbins’ body was found.
“There would have been a lot of open questions had this case gone to trial,” Van Horn said, adding that Holdsworth has a wife and daughter whom he supports by working as a fisherman.
“It made sense for the parties to compromise,” Van Horn said.
This story appears through a media partnership with the Bangor Daily News.
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