Don McLean Facing Additional Charges

Don McLean

The district attorney for Knox County, ME has  filed five more charges Wednesday against singer-songwriter Don McLean, who was arrested Jan. 18 at his home in Camden on a misdemeanor charge of domestic violence assault.

The new charges, all misdemeanors, are domestic violence criminal threatening, domestic violence terrorizing, domestic violence criminal restraint, criminal mischief and obstructing report of a crime. The maximum sentence for each is 364 days in jail.

The Portland Press Herald reports the added charges are the result of a review of the complete investigation, avvording to  Chris Fernald, an assistant district attorney for Knox County. An arraignment is scheduled Monday in Knox County Unified Court, but McLean will not appear.

Patrisha McLean

A not-guilty plea will be entered for the original domestic violence assault charge, and will apply to the new charges as well, said McLean’s attorney, Walter McKee of Augusta.

McLean, 70, is best known for his 1971 hit “American Pie,” which he sang with the Portland Symphony Orchestra in 2013, during Portland’s Fourth of July celebration on the Eastern Promenade. Other McLean hits include the 1972 Top 20 song “Vincent,” and covers of “Crying” and “Since I Don’t Have You” in 1980.

The day after McLean was arrested and posted bail, his wife, photographer Patrisha McLean, obtained a temporary protection-from-abuse order that prohibited her husband from having contact with her. In her statement supporting the request, Patrisha McLean said her husband “terrorized me for four hours until the 911 call that I think might have saved my life.”