FARMINGTON — A Franklin County judge has set bail at $25,000 cash for a New York man accused of shooting a Jay man in the leg Tuesday in an apartment on Church Street.

Christian Meyers Photo from the Franklin County Detention Center

After a review of the case, the district attorney charged Christian Meyers, 21, of Manhattan, New York, with one count each of aggravated assault, receiving stolen property, reckless conduct with a firearm and battery sexually on a minor. Sentences for the charges range from 364 days in prison to 30 years in prison.

The gun used in the case was stolen from an unlocked car on September 30 on Maxwell Road in Wilton, according to the police.

Assistant District Attorney James Andrews asked that bail be set at $50,000 cash, while defense attorney Maurice Porter argued for $10,000 cash. Andrews argued that Meyers was a flight risk because he fled after the shooting. Porter said Meyers has an aunt in Maine who is a lawyer.

Meyers made his Farmington District Court appearance via video from the Franklin County Detention Center. He did not enter a plea because there are three felony charges that require the case to be sent to a grand jury.

According to Andrews and Porter, Meyers has no criminal convictions.

Porter said Meyers’ mother sent him to Maine about a month ago to look for land to buy.

According to Jay Police Chief Joseph Sage’s affidavit, on Tuesday, a 28-year-old man who lived in an apartment at 22 Church St. called police to report that he had been shot in the right side of the groin.

When police arrived, he told them he went to the third-floor apartment at 25 Church St. to get money — more than $300 and less than $400 — owed to him by the man who he lived there. The victim said the man, later identified as Meyers, pulled a gun and threatened to shoot him. The victim was struggling for the gun when Meyers pulled the trigger and shot him in the leg near the groin, according to the affidavit.

The victim was taken by ambulance to a hospital in Lewiston for a single gunshot wound.

Defense attorney Porter said Meyers told him he didn’t know the person who came to his apartment and that the man brought the gun with him.

Officers canvassed the neighborhood and located Meyers at an address on Bemis Street in Livermore Falls. He was in the company of a 14-year-old girl from Livermore Falls whom Meyers referred to as his girlfriend. Meyers gave the girl his backpack, which contained a loaded gun, and she took the items to listen to them at home, according to the affidavit.

Sage met with the girl and the girl’s father and gave Sage the backpack and gun she had hidden in the floor of her father’s room. The girl told Sage that Meyers told her the gun was in the backpack and that he shot someone after he pulled the gun on the man, who grabbed the gun and started struggling with him.

The girl was brought to the Jay Police Department where she provided a statement about the incident and admitted to having had a sexual relationship with Meyers. The girl also told Sage that she knew Meyers was 21 and that Meyers knew she was 14 and that they had parental consent to be in a relationship, according to the police affidavit.

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