ROCKLAND — A Belfast woman faces as much as a year in jail after pleading guilty to domestic violence manslaughter for fatally shooting her sleeping husband in their home last December.
Amber Cummings, 31, will be sentenced in January. She pleaded guilty Friday in Knox County Superior Court to shooting James Cummings, 29, twice in the head while their 9-year-old daughter was at home. She told police that she was abused mentally, physically and sexually by her husband.
A plea agreement calls for a sentence of as much as eight years, with Cummings to serve no more than a year in jail, followed by six years of probation, said Deputy Attorney General William Stokes.
Stokes said the plea agreement reflects an understanding of the violence that Amber Cummings endured in the marriage.
"This is a recognition that we had an extraordinarily abusive and dysfunctional relationship, which justifies our willingness to accept the lesser charge of manslaughter," Stokes said.
Cummings' attorney, Eric Morse, told the Bangor Daily News that he will ask that Cummings not be required to serve jail time when she is sentenced. She is now free on $50,000 bail.
"From the very beginning she had explained to police that she had been abused and was basically defending herself and her daughter," Morse said.
Cummings told police that her husband was a white supremacist and was plotting to build so-called dirty bombs and set them off during President Obama's inauguration.
Radioactive materials were removed from their home after his death, but authorities said that there weren't enough to make a dirty bomb and that the public was never at risk.
Police also discovered a large amount of child pornography on computers taken from the home.
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