By David Harry

Staff Writer

While police in Scarborough and New York sift through tips and information to help solve the disappearance of a Scarborough woman, her boyfriend was arrested in Portland Tuesday night on a criminal threatening charge.

Scarborough Police Detective Don Blatchford said Akeem Cruz, 20, accompanied 22-year-old Megan Waterman on a trip to Long Island before she went missing, but he has not been called a suspect in Waterman’s disappearance.

Blatchford and Waterman’s mother, Lorraine Ela, identified Cruz as the boyfriend of Waterman, who last was seen and heard from June 5 at a Holiday Inn Express in Hauppage, N.Y.

Portland Police Lt. Gary Rogers said Cruz was arrested on Allen Avenue at about 9:20 p.m. for allegedly threatening a woman with a knife and telling her to stop talking about him. Rogers said Cruz allegedly approached the woman as she was looking at two flat tires on her car and flattened the other two tires after she fled the scene.

Ela and Blatchford said Waterman left Scarborough with Cruz just after Memorial Day. Ela said the family last heard from her daughter when Waterman called home to speak with her daughter Lilianna and her grandmother, Muriel Benner.

“She would call the house three times a day to talk to her daughter,” Ela said.

Blatchford said he is sifting through information with help from the Suffolk County Police Department, located on Long Island just outside Brooklyn and Queens, N.Y.

Waterman was known to visit the area, Blatchford said, and had left all her belongings in the room the night she disappeared.

“Clearly the circumstances are suspicious as opposed to other situations,” Blatchford said, because it has been almost two weeks since anyone has seen or heard from Waterman.

Described by her mother as an outgoing young woman, Waterman is 5 feet 5 inches tall, about 145 pounds, has a birthmark inside her left forearm and a mole on the right side of her face. Police said she has brown or bleached blonde hair, and tattoos on her back and left forearm.

Ela, the mother of five children, said her daughter is a native of Portland who attended Scarborough High School.

“We are holding in there,” Ela said. “We have to stay strong, we can’t give up hope.”

Ela said Waterman’s daughter is aware her mother is missing.

Scarborough police are asking anyone with information about Waterman’s disappearance to contact them at 883-6361 or through the department Facebook page.

Blatchford said information has been flowing through the circles of Waterman’s friends, but sorting through it has not led to new developments on her disappearance.

“We just want her home, safe and sound,” said Ela

Staff writer David Harry can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 219