AUGUSTA — A Waterville man convicted of robbing a bank in 2018 pleaded guilty Tuesday to robbing the downtown Waterville Goodwill store last year.
Kevin Lee Barr
Kevin Lee Barr, 43, was sentenced at the Capital Judicial Center to eight years in prison, with all but three years suspended, and three years of probation. That means he’ll spend the next three years in prison but could spend up to eight years in prison if he violates the conditions of his probation.
Assistant District Attorney Shannon Flaherty said a Goodwill clerk told Waterville police that a man wearing a baseball cap with a distinctive logo, black pants, a mask and gloves came into the store Nov. 26, 2022, and told her to open the cash register, pulling up his shirt to reveal what she believed to be a gun or knife. She gave him $176 from the store’s cash register and he fled on foot. Video surveillance recorded his actions.
Officer Ryan Dinsmore and his police dog, Riggs, tracked the suspect and found pants, a blue baseball hat and a pellet gun that Flaherty said looked very similar to a gun. Police received tips from the public that Barr had committed the armed robbery. Police took DNA swabs from the pellet gun which, Flaherty said, initial tests indicated matched Barr’s DNA, though Barr pleaded guilty to the crime before matching DNA tests could be performed.
Barr was arrested in March of this year and charged with Class A robbery and unlawful possession of fentanyl powder.
In a plea agreement, Barr pleaded guilty to a Class B felony charge of robbery and the previous charges were dismissed.
Flaherty said the store clerk, who had only worked there for about four days when the robbery occurred, was visibly upset when she talked to police.
Barr’s probation conditions include that he have no contact with the clerk, not return to Goodwill, pay restitution of $176 to Goodwill Industries, and get substance abuse counseling.
In December 2018, Barr was also convicted of a Class B robbery, and sentenced to two years in prison with all but nine months suspended, and two years probation, according to District Attorney Maeghan Maloney.
In that case, Barr robbed the Waterville KeyBank in July 2018. He was caught after police responding to an alarm used GPS tracking devices concealed in a bag with money he had stolen from the bank. They were able to track him to a roadside site off Lincoln Street in Waterville. There, they found him lying on the ground, about 20 feet away from what police said was a large amount of cash. He told police he had been picking berries.
Tellers at the bank said the robber, later determined to be Barr, was armed with a handgun and wearing a blue bandanna over his face as well as a black baseball cap.
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