Kittery Man Charged with Federal Interstate Domestic Violence Crimes

Portland, Maine:  United States Attorney Halsey B. Frank announced that Nelson Jean Dion, 52, of Kittery, was charged by criminal complaint in U.S. District Court with two counts of interstate travel to violate a protection order. Dion appeared before a United States Magistrate Judge in Portland Tuesday afternoon and was ordered detained pending a court hearing on April 30, 2019.

According to court documents, between April 19, 2016, and June 30, 2016, Dion traveled from Maine to New Hampshire, and then from New Hampshire to Maine, to have contact with a former live-in girlfriend in violation of a provision contained in a bail bond that had been issued by the York County Superior Court.

If convicted as charged, the defendant faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 on each charge. The charges contained in the criminal complaint are only accusations and the defendant remains innocent unless and until proven guilty.

This case was investigated by the Kittery, Berwick, and Eliot, Maine Police Departments, the York County District Attorney’s Office, the Portsmouth, New Hampshire Police Department, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and prosecuted as part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. Attorney General Jeff Sessions reinvigorated PSN in 2017 as part of the Department’s renewed focus on targeting violent criminals, directing all U.S. Attorney’s Offices to work in partnership with federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement and the local community to develop effective, locally-based strategies to reduce violent crime.