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PORTLAND, Maine (Knox Village Soup) — A Maine fishing boat captain whose boat capsized in a storm after an evening of his drinking and drug use was sentenced Thursday to four years in prison followed by three years of supervised release.
Christopher A. Hutchinson, 30, of Cushing, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Portland by Judge D. Brock Hornby for two counts of seaman’s manslaughter.
Hutchinson has been held at the Cumberland County Jail in Portland. He will be given credit for time served.
The bodies of 27-year-old Tom Hammond and 15-year-old Tyler Sawyer were never found.
At the plea hearing in September, Sawyer's stepmother Amie Sawyer told the judge she wanted to see at least two more years added to the sentence, along with a provision that would take away Hutchinson’s fishing licenses.
Hutchinson was the captain of the lobster boat No Limits, which sank near Matinicus Island in a storm Nov. 1, 2014. Court documents allege that he purchased 20, 30-milligram oxycodone pills from two separate drug dealers, smoked marijuana with Sawyer’s father, and drank a rum and coke at a Rockland restaurant on Halloween 2014. He then departed for a fishing trip at 1 a.m. from Linda Bean’s dock in Tenants Harbor. Rain was beginning to fall, and the forecast called for a gale.