LEWISTON — Police arrested a 46-year-old local man on burglary charges in connection with more than a dozen burglaries of commercial buildings over the past several months during which tens of thousands of dollars were stolen.

Police said Donald Hebert IV of 70 Googin St. is at Androscoggin County Jail. Police have conducted several interviews with him. He was picked up shortly before 2:30 a.m. Thursday after a burglary at Reggies Sales & Service tractor supply on Minot Avenue in Auburn that set off an alarm, police said.

He was charged with 21 counts of Class C burglary, punishable by up to 5 years in prison on each count. He’s being held on $10,000 cash bail.

Police had been following him after learning of his identity at an earlier burglary scene.

On Saturday, police responded to an alarm at the Elks Club on Lisbon Street. A tracking dog led them to a bag of burglar’s tools left in the woods. They noted the name of a business on an extension cord and questioned employers at that business, who identified the man from surveillance video footage at a different burglary scene, saying he used to work for that business.

A search of Hebert’s home turned up a commercial safe from one of the burgled businesses and money bags from several of the affected businesses.

Besides cash, Hebert apparently took no other property during the break-ins, police said.

Before Hebert’s arrest, police had stepped up patrols with undercover officers in unmarked vehicles, on bicycle and on foot.

One of the businesses that was burglarized was the Chick-A-Dee restaurant at 1472 Lisbon St., where a man fitting the description of Hebert was caught on surveillance video walking around the parking lot and attempting to break into a safe.

Anyone with additional information about recent commercial burglaries in the Twin Cities is urged to call Lewiston Police Department detectives at 207-513-3001.

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