HOULTON, Maine — A district court judge in Augusta has found competent to stand trial a Houlton man who was charged with kidnapping in March 2016 after allegedly holding a woman captive for several hours.
Jeffrey Pickering of Houlton, the attorney for Dushko Vulchev, said on Friday that the ruling was made following a hearing last month, about a year after Vulchev began seeking mental health treatment at the Riverview Psychiatric Facility in Augusta for an undisclosed mental health condition.
Vulchev was indicted in June 2016 on eight charges by the Aroostook County grand jury — kidnapping, domestic violence assault, obstructing the report of a crime, theft, domestic violence terrorizing, improper contact, and two counts of violating conditions of release.
According to the Houlton Police Department, the victim with whom Vulchev had a prior relationship was found by investigators naked, bruised and emotionally shaken after police arrived at the Court Street home where she allegedly was being held captive. The woman’s parents, who live out of state, had called police to check on their daughter’s welfare after they were unable to contact her and she did not show up for work.
After police went to Vulchev’s home a couple of times and he did not respond, the officers obtained a search warrant to force open the door. Once in the home, officers said they heard a voice calling for help and found both Vulchev and the woman in a bedroom.
Pickering said that Vulchev has racked up additional charges of violation of conditions of release since his arrest for allegedly repeatedly calling the victim from jail. At a court hearing in the summer of 2016, he was deemed incompetent to stand trial and was sent to Riverview, according to his attorney. Pickering said last week that subsequent treatment has helped his client, and the attorney believes that Vulchev may be transferred back to the Aroostook County Jail in Houlton soon.
“I don’t know at this point if we will be preparing for trial or if he will be offered a plea deal,” Pickering said. “That is ongoing at this point.”
In 2015, Vulchev served about seven months in prison after he was convicted in U.S. District Court of one count of making threats in foreign commerce. That charge stemmed from an email he sent threatening to kill an economist and administrator with the European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, in Brussels, Belgium.
Houlton police said that just prior to his arrest on the kidnapping related charges last year, Vulchev had approached them about wanting to purchase weapons to send to Bulgaria. Aroostook County Sheriff Darrell Crandall also said that Vulchev showed up at the Aroostook County Jail to unsuccessfully seek the home address of a deputy, and then followed another deputy home to try to procure the information. He was issued trespass warnings.
