AUBURN — A jury Tuesday convicted a Livermore man of three hunting violations after a two-day trial that shone a spotlight on tactics employed by the Maine Warden Service.

Dennis LaMontagne, 47, was sentenced by Androscoggin County Superior Court Justice Lance Walker on a charge of discharging a firearm near a dwelling to four days in jail and a $200 fine and the forfeiture of a hunting rifle.

On a charge of falsifying physical evidence, LaMontagne was sentenced to two days in jail to be served at the same time as his four-day sentence. On a charge of duty to carry and exhibit license, LaMontagne was fined $100.

In sentencing LaMontagne, Walker said he considered a threat captured on an audio recording made by the defendant about a warden: “The next time he follows me in the woods, he’s not coming out.”

Walker said that threat “should be of significant concern for members of the Warden Service” who often are alone on patrol and encounter people with guns.

LaMontagne is expected to report Wednesday morning to Androscoggin County Jail to serve his time. All of the charges were misdemeanors, one of them punishable by up to 364 days in jail.

The trial pitted the testimony of five wardens against LaMontagne and his family.

In the end, the jury believed the wardens’ testimony, bolstered by an audio recording of a conversation between Sgt. Jason Luce and LaMontagne, who could be heard telling Luce: “I felt comfortable I was at the 100-yard line. I made a mistake.”

State law makes it a crime to shoot within 100 yards of a dwelling without permission from that property owner. Kathleen Perkins testified Monday that LaMontagne didn’t have permission to shoot on or near her property.

A juror, who requested that his name not be used, said after the trial that the recording held greatest sway with the panel of 11 men and one woman.

He said the testimony of Luce, coupled with the recording, which confirmed the warden’s statements under oath, was the most credible of the witnesses on both sides of the case.

Had it not been for the audio recording, the juror said, he and his fellow jurors likely would still be continuing their deliberations.

The jury returned verdicts shortly after having the testimony of Warden Kristopher MacCabe read back by the court reporter. In that testimony, MacCabe said: “I asked for the firearm that (LaMontagne) had shot the deer with.”

In all, the jury deliberated for roughly an hour before returning its verdict.

MacCabe was one of two wardens who responded to a 911 call LaMontagne made on Nov. 18, 2014, to report that a deer had been shot on River Road in Livermore, about half a mile from his home.

LaMontagne testified that he was returning home midafternoon from a logging job in Weld when John Rolfe, his passenger and son-in-law, spotted a buck in a field and shouted for LaMontagne to stop his truck. LaMontagne and Rolfe testified that Rolfe grabbed bullets and the rifle he used for hunting, crossed the road and a ditch, loaded his rifle and shot at the deer while standing next to a stonewall.

He wounded the animal, which eventually ran onto posted property that LaMontagne was forbidden from entering, Rolfe and LaMontagne said.

Two wardens arrived and recovered a casing from near the wall. A search for the deer was unsuccessful.

LaMontagne was issued a summons for shooting near the Perkins home and another for hunting without a license, when he failed to produce his license after searching his truck. Warden MacCabe took the gun LaMontagne handed him from his truck.

The next day, the two wardens returned to the scene and measured the distance from the home to the shell casing. They also sought to track down the wounded deer. When LaMontagne stopped by, he was cited for trespassing, a charge that was later dropped. A forensic calculation of the distance a month later determined the casing was 249 feet from the home, 51 feet short of the 100-yard limit.

The rifle LaMontagne handed to MacCabe didn’t match the casing found at the scene. So, in April 2015, five wardens converged on LaMontagne’s home with a search warrant for the rifle that would match the recovered casing. Wardens seized two .308-caliber hunting rifles that LaMontagne can be heard in the audio recording telling Luce had “never been out of the box.”

One of those two rifles was later determined to have fired the round shot near the stonewall in November.

LaMontagne was charged with falsifying evidence by handing wardens the wrong gun on the day of the shooting.

Prosecutors said it was a clear case of LaMontagne not taking responsibility for his actions on that day when he shot at the deer and hit it but didn’t kill it. Several wardens said LaMontagne told them he had taken the shot that wounded the deer, then deliberately turned over the wrong rifle.

In the audio recording, LaMontagne said he was returning from a hunting trip, not a logging job as he testified in his trial testimony. Prosecutors also noted that LaMontagne, not Rolfe, was the one who steered wardens to where the spent casing would be found.

Defense attorney Leonard Sharon painted a picture of an overzealous Maine Warden Service that conspired to bring down LaMontagne since opening day of hunting season when one warden familiar to LaMontagne reportedly told him that he would be keeping his eye on him.

LaMontagne, who is part French and part Penobscot Indian, can’t read or write, Sharon said. He lives on the farm he inherited from his father.

Sharon criticized the investigation carried out by the wardens and suggested they had turned his client into a criminal. He sought to cast doubt on the audio recording, suggesting that LaMontagne’s “confession” was actually a reference to a different encounter with a game warden and not the November shooting. He said his client was referring to ammunition, not rifles, when he said the .308s had never been out of the box.

Rather than simply asking LaMontagne to hand over the rifle that fired the shot that hit the deer on that day in November, after discovering the rifle LaMontagne had given them that day wasn’t a match, they conducted a heavy-handed raid on his home that led to a physical confrontation that resulted in LaMontagne being arrested and handcuffed, Sharon said.

Assistant District Attorney Andrew Matulis said after the verdict: “I’m just glad that the truth came out at the end of the day. The Warden Service works hard; they do good work and this conviction certainly is justification of that.”

Sharon said the jury’s conclusion that LaMontagne was the one who shot at the deer that day in November doesn’t change the other aspects of the case, including his suspicion that two wardens collaborated on their similar-sounding reports and that his client had been targeted.

“I still think it was a bad investigation,” Sharon said.

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