AUGUSTA, Maine — A former guard at the Cumberland County Jail was found guilty of manslaughter on Thursday.
Kenneth Morang was driving a pickup truck in July 2019 in Gorham when he crashed into an SUV with a father and three daughters inside.
One of those daughters was 9-year-old Raelynn Bell, who died as a result of the crash.
Morang was charged with manslaughter because prosecutors said he was driving recklessly because of a serious lack of sleep after working a 16-hour shift at Cumberland County Jail.
"If you were to look at his time card from Sunday to Sunday, say the 14th through the 22nd when this occurred, he logged more than 80 hours that week. Fifty-five of which occurred between the 17th and the 21st," prosecutor Thad West argued.
The prosecution and Morang's defense attorneys disagreed about Morang's state of mind that day, and whether Morang's overtime hours in the days before the crash rose to the level of reckless behavior.
"He didn't know what was going on. We've heard that from him. We've heard that from him through the statements of others," Amy Fairfield, Morang's defense attorney, told the jury on Thursday.
Morang faces up to 30 years in prison.