Kittery Man Pleads Guilty to Federal Interstate Domestic Violence Charges

PORTLAND, Maine:  A Kittery man pleaded guilty today in federal court in Portland to two counts of interstate travel to violate a protection order, U.S. Attorney Halsey B. Frank announced.

According to court documents, in April 2016, Nelson Jean Dion, 53, who resided in Maine, was arrested for felony aggravated assault involving his former live-in girlfriend, who was by then living in a domestic violence shelter in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. A few days later, Dion was released on bail and was subject to a protection order that prohibited his contact with his former girlfriend.

Between April and June 2016, Dion traveled from Maine to New Hampshire, and then from New Hampshire to Maine, to have contact with the girlfriend in violation of the protection order. On June 30, 2016, the girlfriend jumped from the Piscataqua River Bridge on Interstate 95 and died the next day.

Dion faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 on each charge. He will be sentenced after the completion of a presentence investigation report by the U.S. Probation Office.

The Kittery, Berwick, and Eliot, Maine Police Departments; the York County District Attorney’s Office; the Portsmouth, New Hampshire Police Department; and the FBI investigated the case.

This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. The Department of Justice reinvigorated PSN in 2017 as part of the Department’s renewed focus on targeting violent criminals, directing all U.S. Attorney’s Offices to work in partnership with federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement and the local community to develop effective, locally-based strategies to reduce violent crime.