WOBURN - Lowell Superior Court judge Jane Haggerty this morning sentenced former Woburn police officer Paul Meaney Jr. to 6-10 years in a state penitentiary for raping a then 23-year-old city resident nearly three-years-ago.

Upon his release from MCI-Cedar Junction, Meaney will have to serve a 10-year probation period, and undergo substance abuse treatment.

On March 24, Meaney was convicted by a jury of two counts of aggravated rape, four counts of indecent assault and battery on a person over 14, and one count of breaking and entering during the nighttime.

Meaney's new lawyer, Timothy Bradl, filed a notice of appeal.

According to Meaney attorney Daniel Moynihan, who handled the defense during the trial, who several defense objections were erroneously dismissed during the course of the 8-day trial, his client will appeal the guilty findings.

Although the defense lawyer urged the judge to release the Elm Street resident on personal recognizance until that appeal process had played out, Haggerty denied Moynihan's request.

A jury made up of seven men and five women rendered the convictions after nearly 15-hours worth of deliberations over a three-day span

With Assistant Middlesex District Attorney Suzanne Kontz successfully lobbying the judge to have Meaney's bail revoked following the guilty verdicts, the Elm Street man had been held in a Middleton detention center pending his sentencing this morning.

During the course of the trial, the victim testified that the 44-year-old raped her in her Woburn apartment after breaking into the dwelling on the night of June 27, 2003.

Claiming that she had awakened to a clinking sound on her bedroom television stand, the then 23-year-old woman told police authorities the next day that the Elm Street man had left a Dunkin' Donuts traveler mug at her home after the sexual assault.

Becoming the only piece of physical evidence, Kontz called a relative of the victim to the stand, who recalled seeing Meaney carrying the same plastic cup around during a pool party at her home that night.

A State Police Trooper and fingerprinting specialist later testified that the mug, which was seized by Woburn Police during an investigation into the rape allegations the next day, contained one print impression on the lid matching the middle finger of the defendant.

Countering that local police botched the investigation by failing to seize the bed sheets where the purported rape took place, Moynihan challenged the lack of physical evidence in the case — calling into question how only one fingerprint could be located within an apartment that the 44-year-old was accused of breaking into.

The defense attorney further doubted the victim and her relative's recollection of events during the night of the incident, reasoning that the two women recalled Meaney's possession of the coffee mug all too clearly, while forgetting a number of other significant details.

Meaney, who was dismissed in May of 2002 from his position in the police department by former Mayor John Curran, was first arraigned on the rape charges in Woburn District Court on July 25, 2003.

In August of that year, a Middlesex Grand jury indicted the 44-year-old on two counts of aggravated rape, four counts of indecent assault and battery, and one count of breaking and entering.