Farmington man arrested on power stealing charge

1 min read

FARMINGTON – A 47-year-old man was arrested after police said he was stealing electrical power through an illegal hookup he rigged using jumper cables.

Christopher Bard (Franklin County Jail photo)
Christopher Bard (Franklin County Jail photo)

Christopher Bard of Farmington was arrested on Saturday and charged with theft of services.

According to Farmington police Officer Justin Blais and Sgt. Edward Hastings IV, a witness called to report Bard, using a ladder against a utility pole, was hooking up a vehicle’s jumper cables from one mobile home’s live power line to supply unmetered power to another  nearby mobile home.

The incident is alleged to have occurred in the trailer park on Pillsbury Lane. Bard owns and rents out mobile homes in the park, according to the report.

The jumper cables were reportedly used to “effectively steal power,” Hastings wrote in his report. Bard, police  said, was letting someone live at the trailer and intended on contacting Central Maine Power.

Bard was arrested and transported to the Franklin County Detention Center. He was released that same day on $250 cash bail. A court date of Nov. 4 was set.

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21 Comments

  1. There’s a guy on Pease pond in Wilton who did this—- caused massive bills for adjacent camp

  2. Is this story current? I bet he was shocked when the cops showed up. I’m just glad someone was ohm and he didn’t get charged with resistance.

  3. I suppose Mr PAlings response was a turn off for some, powerful for others Thanks for somehumor

  4. Happy for all of you who got such a charge out of it! Watts wrong with that! Power to the People! Who would have thought a short story about a dim bulb would generate so many comments! Sounds like the police had good grounds to press charges! Well, I’m burnt out, overloaded, hardly have a spark of energy left, so it’s lights out!

  5. Just a Sine of the times, folks…stealing AC from the neighbors really Hertz! I hope the Reactance of the community isn’t too extreme, even over a Joule thief ;) I often think that Inductance into the Service is a good way to Short Circuit such things before it comes to requiring this level of Troubleshooting…but there’s really no set Schematic, no way to Meter out who might try this…

  6. lol at the comments… its not so funny that he was stealing power…isnt he the owner of a trucking business or something…seems to me he could have done the legal thing, called the enemies camp (CMP) and sold his sole to them like the rest of us have to do to obtain power from them. And yes I did get quite a charge out of this :)

  7. My first harmless comment was banned by the righteous Bulldog yet you allow a poster to call someone a “dim bulb”??

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