AUBURN — Police say a Livermore Falls man was arrested Tuesday for robbing a Lewiston store.

Ronald Austin, 28, of 22 Gagnon St., Livermore Falls, was charged with Class A robbery, punishable by up to 30 years in prison.

Police said in an affidavit that Austin went into Lewiston Variety at 145 College St. on Tuesday night, threatened the clerk with a gun and demanded money. He fled after the clerk gave him cash from the register, she told police.

Austin had entered the store dressed in a hooded, charcoal-gray sweatshirt, jeans and white Nike sneakers. He grabbed a drink from one of the store’s aisles and put it on the checkout counter. He walked out of the store, then re-entered a couple of minutes later, police said, based on store surveillance-video footage. Police later took the drink Austin handled for DNA and fingerprint evidence.

Austin waited until the clerk was waiting on another customer, when he moved to the end of the checkout counter, near the store’s front door, police said. He pushed his hand forward in the pocket of his sweatshirt as if to indicate he had something concealed in it.

A police informant who was shown a still image from the video identified the suspect as someone seen entering a building on Howe Street shortly before the robbery. Police said drug users were known to frequent an apartment at that address. They knocked on that apartment door and were let in by the tenant. They identified a man fitting the description from the store’s video in the apartment. He wore the same shoes, but had apparently changed his pants, Detective David Levesque wrote in his affidavit. When questioned, Austin denied any wrongdoing.

The apartment’s tenant told police Austin had shown up with money and had swapped pants with another man shortly before police arrived.

Following his arrest, he denied being at the store and robbing it.

The man Austin had changed pants with later told police that Austin told him he had just robbed someone and was seeking crack cocaine. The man told police Austin had asked to swap pants with him, which the man agreed to do.

Another witness from the apartment told police that Austin had a “stack of cash” with which to buy crack cocaine. She said Austin had been wearing a hoodie that fit the description from the store’s video when she saw Austin in the building’s hallway earlier. It apparently belonged to another person from the apartment.

He was held Thursday at Androscoggin County Jail in lieu of $15,000 cash, $75,000 in real estate or $5,000 plus a contract for supervised release.

cwilliams@sunjournal.com

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