AUBURN — A Lewiston man, who police said broke into an Oxford Street apartment last month, threatened tenants at gunpoint and stole marijuana, was charged Tuesday with robbery, burglary and theft.
Dominique Bailey, 29, of 33 Winter St., faces two felonies handed up by an Androscoggin County grand jury. Each is punishable by up to 30 years in prison. The third charge is a felony that carries a penalty of up to five years in prison.
Police said in an affidavit that Bailey was one of two men wearing ski masks and dark clothing who broke into an apartment at 64 Oxford St. on Jan. 9 shortly after 10 p.m. One of them was armed with a gun.
A witness in the apartment told police the two men were yelling at a woman and another tenant. One of the men aimed a gun at the witness and ordered him to get on the floor. The man with the gun was ordering the woman to give him money. One of the men went through the witness’s pockets and took a clip to a BB gun, according to the affidavit.
Another witness told responding police that one of the suspects had run behind a nearby parking garage. Police found Bailey behind the garage with a cooler that held several Mason jars of marijuana. During a search, police found a ski mask on him.
According to the affidavit, a witness told police she was leaving her apartment in the same Oxford Street building when she saw her neighbor who said he’d been robbed. She saw two men run toward Lincoln Street. One ran behind a bakery while the other pointed a gun at one of the residents from the robbed apartments. When one of the men started to leave a parking lot in a maroon car, the man who had been the earlier target of the gunman rammed the car with a plow truck.
The man who had aimed the gun at the plow truck driver ran toward the bakery, the witness said.
The maroon car, a Nissan Altima, left the parking lot with one man in it. The other suspect had run behind the parking garage, she told police. Her boyfriend confirmed her account.
Police found the maroon car in a parking lot on Canal Street, its front end heavily damaged, consistent with being hit by a snowplow. A ski mask could be seen in the car.
Street surveillance video captured the two men, including Bailey, running through the parking lot next to the bakery. Bailey is shown carrying the cooler with the jars of marijuana.
The man who drove the plow truck told police his girlfriend had owed money to someone who was expected to rob her. She was the one the man with the gun was ordering to give him money, according to the affidavit.
At a court appearance on Jan. 11, Bailey was ordered held at Androscoggin County Jail in lieu of $100,000 cash bail. If freed, he must not have anything “that can be perceived as a firearm or pellet guns,” according to court papers. He’s forbidden from having contact with any of the five witnesses, including the victims.
Bailey is expected back in court Friday for arraignment on the charges.
cwilliams@sunjournal.com
Dominique Bailey (Androscoggin County Jail photo)
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