MACHIAS – A 33-year-old Ellsworth man accused of nearly running over a Calais policeman and then leading police on a chase through the city, finally abandoning his car downtown, is expected to take the stand today in Washington County Superior Court.

The trial for Daniel Mutty began Wednesday.

Mutty, who has a long criminal history that includes unlawful sexual contact for which he served five years in prison and who is a registered sex offender, said little except to whisper an occasional question to his defense attorney, Frank Cassidy of Machias, when Cassidy was cross-examining witnesses.

Bangor Savings Bank teller Terry Holland testified that on June 14 she had read an alert from the bank’s security department that someone had stolen checks from a business and was trying to cash them. Holland said that a short time later a man drove up to the drive-up window in a pickup truck. She said he gave her a check and his driver’s license. She said the name matched the name of the person on the security alert. She notified the bank’s security who told her to call police.

Within seconds Sgt. Chris Donahue of the Calais Police Department arrived. He pulled his cruiser to the front of Mutty’s truck and questioned the man. Holland testified that Donahue then stepped to the side of Mutty’s vehicle to use his two-way radio.

It was then that Mutty is said to have stomped on his accelerator, smashed into the front of the cruiser, jumped the bank’s parking lot curb, drove down a grassy slope, over another curb and onto North Street.

“I hollered and it scared me,” Holland testified. “I thought Sergeant Donahue was going to get hit.”

Calais resident Sandy Draper testified she was in line behind Mutty’s vehicle when she witnessed the getaway. “All I could think of was I hope nobody’s coming cause he’ll kill them,” she said.

Mutty then rushed down North Street and apparently jumped out of his truck. It rolled down the hill and into a truck belonging to Julianna Mahan who had just sold the Black Bear Pub on North Street and was in the process of moving.

She said that she and a friend had parked their cars on North Street so they could load her belongings into the truck. “I heard a tremendous explosion, crash or boom,” she said. She said she ran outside to see Mutty’s truck embedded in the side of her truck. She said the force of the crash moved her truck several feet.

Sgt. David Randall of the Calais police testified he pursued Mutty on foot. He said an eyewitness told him there was no one in the truck when it crashed into the Mahan vehicle.

Mutty was eventually arrested on Monroe Street.

Donahue then took the stand, but his testimony was interrupted because of the lateness of the hour. He will be back on the stand today. Mutty also is expected to take the stand today.