Jeremy Clement has an explosive and violent temper that’s shocked and terrorized family and friends, prompting protection from abuse orders over fears that he’d seriously harm both children and adults in recent years.
Those allegations against Clement emerged Friday from interviews and court documents on the same day he was ordered held on $500,000 cash bail on charges that he shot and injured his ex-girlfriend in Oakland in a bloody confrontation that ended with police subduing him with a stun gun.
Watch: Oakland family speaks about the bloody fight that ended with gunfire
Domestic violence hotline
If you or someone you know is being affected by domestic violence, help is available through the state’s toll-free hotline at 1-866-834-4357.
Clement, 36, of Fairfield, could be seen on the court video monitor Friday wearing a padded green suit with his hands cuffed to a chain at his waist. He is charged with burglary with intent to commit murder or assault, elevated aggravated assault for allegedly causing serious bodily injury to his ex-girlfriend, and assault on her mother, all of which reportedly happened Wednesday night.
Jasmine Caret remains hospitalized at MaineGeneral Medical Center in Augusta with serious injuries from the gunshot wound.
Clement allegedly drove a four-wheeler to the Oakland home where his ex-girlfriend Jasmine Caret was staying with her mother, Roseanna Caret, then kicked in the door of the home and shot Jasmine Caret. Roseanna Caret then hit him on the head with a baseball bat.
Clement’s head was not swathed in a bandage Friday as it had been when a jail intake photo was taken a day earlier.
The prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Michael Madigan, requested $1 million bail with conditions prohibiting him from contact with the victims.
“The victim in this was scared for her life,” Madigan said, adding that Clement had previous convictions for domestic violence assault, as well as another assault, violating a protection order, disorderly conduct and numerous driving violations, including operating under the influence and operating after habitual offender revocation, and a number of bail violations.
May Caret, Jasmine Caret’s 80-year-old grandmother, who was at home with her daughter and her granddaughter when Clement confronted Jasmine Caret, said Friday that Clement has been mentally and physically abusive to her granddaughter for a long time.
“Oh, gosh, he’s taken and choked her — put his hands around her neck and hung her over the fence in the house and threw her down the stairs,” she said. “There’s so many different things like that that has happened.”
Clement, she said, always was accusing Jasmine Caret of having a boyfriend. That would happen if she, as a home health worker, came home late from a client’s house, for instance.
“Every time we advised her to leave, she didn’t dare leave because she was so scared of him,” May said of her granddaughter. “Finally, she went to drinking to kind of calm herself down so she wouldn’t talk back to him.”
When Jasmine Caret moved out of Clement’s home about two weeks ago, the state Department of Health and Human Services advised her to stay away from him, May Caret said. Clement and Jasmine Caret have a 3-year-old son together, and the son was taken away from Clement because the home was not safe, according to Roseanna Caret.
Madigan said in court that a child protective hearing that held been scheduled previously for this past Thursday was directly related to the shooting incident and that information obtained by the district attorney’s office indicated Clement did not want Jasmine Caret to testify and “had made multiple threats against her life prior to this.”
While Madigan was speaking, Clement was shaking his head from side to side as if to indicate it was not true.
Clement, who also has been an assistant football coach for the Police Athletic League based in Fairfield, also appeared to say in court Friday, “They’re all false.”
HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
Clement has an extensive criminal history in Maine, according to a statewide records check.
He pleaded guilty to numerous criminal charges from 2004 to 2009 and received jail sentences, fines and probation, including convictions for criminal threatening in 2005, assault in 2006, operating under the influence in 2006, assault in 2007, and domestic violence assault in 2009. He had no criminal convictions for the next several years, until 2015, when he pleaded guilty to operating under the influence with one prior conviction and to disorderly conduct involving offensive words and gestures.
Clement’s history of violence apparently also has led others to file for protection from abuse orders against him.
A temporary protection from abuse order signed by a Skowhegan District Court Judge on April 13 of this year prohibits Clement from having contact with a woman who is the mother of one of his children and giving the mother sole parental rights in connection with the child. In the order, Clement is ordered not to possess a firearm or other weapon. The mother — who is not Jasmine Caret — writes in her bid for a protection order that she was unable to go home because of Clement’s threats and she needed to keep her daughter safe.
“I need the system to help protect us. To stop him from terrorizing so we’re not looking over our shoulders so we’re not in fear anymore,” she wrote.
She states her daughter needs to be a little girl and not live in fear and wonder why her life is turned upside down.
In a separate court order dated June 22, 2015, the father of Jasmine Caret’s now-7-year-old daughter got a temporary order for protection from abuse that prohibits Clement from having a firearm or other weapon. In his bid for the protection order, the child’s father writes that Clement was arrested June 19, 2015, for domestic violence against the child’s mother and the child claims mental abuse from Clement.
Clement ultimately was convicted on a charge of disorderly conduct, offensive words, gestures, in connection with that June 19 incident. He was jailed for three days.
“At the time of arrest, my daughter was locked in her bedroom,” the man wrote. “The assault was against her mother, Jasmine Caret. I feel that Jeremy will retaliate both physically and mentally against (my daughter) if he is allowed to live at the same residence or correspond with her in any way. She has told me in the past of mental abuse by Jeremy. She says that he calls her names, etc. Jeremy has a history of domestic violence and I do not want my daughter near him.”
May Caret recalled that on Easter two years ago, she took Easter baskets to Jasmine Caret and Clement’s house for the children, and Clement went “ballistic.”
“I’d never seen him like that before. I was getting over breast cancer. He told me, ‘Don’t feed any candy to my kids,’ and I told him I wasn’t feeding them candy; I’m separating the candy from the toys so they can have the toys.’ He said, ‘I told you to get the (expletive) out of my house.’ It was pouring rain. I got real nervous and I started shaking and I was crying. I was very upset. I realized after that, he does not want any of Jasmine’s family around. His family, fine; but not her family, and he always said to Jasmine, ‘If I can’t have you, nobody else is going to. I’ll kill every single one of your family.’ That’s why I shut the door and locked it when he came Wednesday night.”
May Caret said her granddaughter has never been sick or in the hospital and was worried about having an MRI Friday afternoon.
“They’re afraid she’s got nerve damage, because she can’t move her right arm,” she said.
Clement posted on his personal Facebook page Sept. 1, 2015, a link to a news story about a Rockland resident who shot an intruder. Clement commented on the story by writing, “Come into my home intruder, you will get the same thing!!!”
He then added, “I won’t aim for your shoulder !!!!”
INTENT TO HURT?
An affidavit written by Oakland police Officer Todd Burbank said he received a call 8:47 p.m. Wednesday from Jasmine Caret saying Clement had ridden to her house on his four-wheeler and she wanted him removed.
“Jasmine told me earlier in the evening that there have been some domestic violence issues,” Burbank wrote in the affidavit filed with the court.
He said when he arrived, “Jasmine was outside and screamed at me that she has been shot. I noticed that Jasmine was holding her shoulder and she was bleeding heavily. Jasmine told me that Jeremy is assaulting her mother.”
Burbank said he went inside and saw Clement on top of Roseanna Caret. Burbank pointed his firearm at Clement and told him to keep his hands up and move away from Roseanna.
Burbank said Clement refused to move away, and directed an expletive at Burbank by name. Burbank said Clement still had his hands up and was not holding a firearm, so he holstered his own and pulled out his stun gun.
“I kept asking Jeremy to get off Roseanna and he refused,” Burbank wrote. “I activated my Taser and I took him into custody.”
Rosesanna Caret told police she grabbed a baseball bat when she saw Clement pull into the yard. She also said she told him not to come into the house, but he kicked in the door.
“Roseanna started to hit Jeremy in the head,” Burbank wrote. “At this time, Jasmine came out of a room and towards the kitchen. At this time Jeremy pulled out a .40-caliber pistol and shot Jasmine at point blank range.”
In court Friday, attorney Stephen Bourget, representing Clement as lawyer of the day, said Clement’s version of events differs from the police version.
“Mr. Clement certainly never intended to hurt anybody,” Bourget said. “He was talking to the mother of his child, and not her mother.”
Bourget added, “He remembers getting hit with baseball bat to back of his head and then everything else went awry,”
Bourget suggested unsecured bail for Clement with a Maine Pretrial Services supervision contract, saying the prosecution’s request for $1 million wasn’t reasonable. He said Clement had some problems involving his children with work and with his house in foreclosure, and had mental health problems.
“Mr. Clement simply doesn’t have a million dollars,” Bourget said. “Probably the whole town could not raise a million dollars.”
Bourget said Clement is an independent contractor, a welder who helped build the courthouse where Judge Evert Fowle was sitting. Bourget said Clement had one child with Jasmine Caret and one with another woman.
Madigan told the judge that he had several witnesses waiting to testify at the bail hearing if the judge needed it; however, those people were not called. Afterward, Madigan said they were from various state agencies.
Fowle set bail at $500,000, saying he was taking into account the nature and seriousness of the charges, Clement’s criminal record and the safety of the community.
Fowle set bail conditions that prohibit Clement from contact with the victims, from possessing dangerous weapons and from being in the town of Oakland. Clement said he had no reason to be there.
Attorney Pamela Ames, who has been appointed to represent Clement in the child protective case, was appointed as his attorney in the criminal case as well. Fowle said Ames would be able to argue bail in the future as well. Ames said later Friday that she had yet to meet Clement.
Clement is now set for a disposition conference at 2 p.m. July 13.
Betty Adams — 621-5631
badams@centralmaine.com
Twitter: @betadams
Amy Calder — 861-9247
acalder@centralmaine.com
Twitter: @AmyCalder17
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Comments are no longer available on this story