An Oakland man has been charged in U.S. District Court in Bangor in connection with a 2007 pharmacy robbery.
Michael E. Algiere, 32, is charged with one count of interference with commerce by robbery in an incident that occurred nearly 11 years ago, on Oct. 31, 2007.
His first appearance on the charge, which was filed Monday, has not been set.
Investigators used DNA evidence collected nearly 10 years after the robbery to connect Algiere to the alleged crime.
Normally, the statute of limitations for federal crimes is five years — unless the identification of a suspect depends on a DNA match. The statute resets on the date a match is made.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Lowell declined to comment on the case. It is the practice of federal prosecutors not to comment on pending cases.
Algiere’s attorney, Ronald Bourget of Augusta, said that he would be challenging the government’s DNA evidence with an independent expert.
“The statute of limitations will be very interesting in this case,” the defense attorney said Tuesday.
Maine does not have a similar law that extends the statute of limitations as the federal law does, according to the Maine Attorney General’s Office.
According to the complaint, Algiere allegedly walked into what in 2007 was the Oakland Pharmacy about 5:50 p.m. on Halloween wearing a ski mask, a blue hooded sweatshirt, a black jacket over the sweatshirt, gloves and jeans.
The robber pointed a knife at the pharmacist and demanded oxycodone, which the pharmacist handed over, according to the complaint. A pharmacy technician followed the suspected robber and saw him jump a nearby fence.
Later that day, police found a black ski mask and a hooded sweatshirt along the path the robber reportedly fled. The next day, a knife and gloves were found in the same area, the complaint said.
The same male DNA was obtained from the knife and the ski mask but when it was loaded into the Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, in late 2007 or early 2008, there was no match.
On May 12, 2016, Algiere was sentenced to three years in prison with all but five months suspended and three years of probation on a Class C theft charge, unrelated to the alleged pharmacy robbery.
That conviction would have required Algiere to submit a DNA sample to be included in CODIS.
Algiere is being held at the Kennebec County Jail on a recent unrelated state charge.
If convicted of the 2007 pharmacy robbery, Algiere could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison and fined up to $250,000. He also could be ordered to pay restitution.
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