AUGUSTA — The demand note used in the Gardiner Rite Aid pharmacy robbery Thursday was written on a torn receipt from a supermarket purchase by the suspect two days earlier, according to investigators.

The note read: “Shut the (expletive) up Fill with 30 15 Oxy methadone rids.”

That detail was among those contained in documents released Friday in Augusta District Court where Jesse Michael Mansir, 31, of Randolph, was charged in connection with that robbery.

He was also charged with unlawful trafficking of oxycodone for allegedly trying to sell the stolen pills.

A court affidavit said FBI agents found the other half of the receipt that the note was written on in a Highland Avenue apartment, and when they checked the store’s securty video that matched the time stamp on the receipt, it showed Mansir leaving the store.

Meanwhile, police said Friday that they have ruled out Mansir as a suspect in a similar robbery earlier this week in Randolph.

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Mansir made an initial court appearance Friday via video from the jail, and Judge Patrick Ende set bail at $20,000 cash or $100,000 worth of property.

Attorney David Geller, who represented Mansir at the brief proceeding, asked that Mansir be permitted to do a bed-to-bed transfer to an in-patient substance abuse treatment hospital, but Ende denied that request, saying it could be resubmitted once an attorney was appointed in this case.

“As I read the probable cause affidavit, drug treatment was jumping out at me,” Ende said.

Standing next to Mansir at the jail, Geller said he went over the complaint word for word. Mansir, wearing an orange jail uniform, looked down most of the time rather than at the television camera.

In seeking a relatively high bail, Assistant District Attorney David Spencer outlined Mansir’s criminal record, which contains theft and burglary convictions, and said Mansir served at least 18 months on one probation revocation charge.

Spencer said he was concerned that Mansir would walk out of a treatment center because it would not be secure and because of the length of time Mansir faces in the robbery charge. A conviction carries a maximum penalty of 10 years.

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Mansir also has an unpaid fine of $20 from a previous case. “He doesn’t even have anybody who could pay the $20,” Geller told the judge.

In the probable cause affidavit by Gardiner Police Detective Michael Durham, the officer says witnesses at the pharmacy reported that the robber said he had a gun and kept telling the pharmacists to hurry up.

Witnesses did not see a weapon, but video surveillance images showed the robber “kept one hand concealed in his clothing throughout the robbery,” Durham wrote.

The robber fled with bottles containing 200 pills and a GPS tracking device, and the bottle with the device was later found on Highland Avenue, police said.

Durham said he recognized the man on the video as Mansir because of previous police involvement, and numerous witnesses also identified Mansir as the robber.

“The note left behind was written on the back of a Hannaford receipt, which had been torn in half,” Durham wrote.

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One witness later told investigators that Mansir showed up at a Highland Avenue home “pissed off” and took out a receipt, ripped it in half and wrote on one half.

FBI agents recovered the other half of the receipt, as well as the pen used, from a Highland Avenue residence, Durham said. When investigators viewed supermarket video from the time stamped on the receipt, they saw Mansir and a woman, and Mansir was holding a baby.

The affidavit also states that Gardiner police Sgt. Stacey Blair had responded to a report of a family fight between Mansir and his girlfriend at a Highland Avenue residence at 8:40 a.m. Thursday, less than two hours before the robbery occurred. The couple was fighting, Blair told Durham, because they were addicts and had run out of drugs.

Mansir’s family members also reported concerns that Mansir was involved in the robbery. Durham wrote that Mansir confessed to robbing the pharmacy “to support his own opiate addiction, and he used a lot of the drugs throughout the day.”

“He said he spent most of the rest of the day in the woods getting high,” the officer wrote.

The robbery happened at 10:35 a.m. Thursday. Around 5 p.m., police got a tip that led them to residential Harrison Avenue, where a search of area woods was undertaken by Maine State Police, Kennebec County sheriff’s deputies and Gardiner police — 15 officers and two dog teams in all.

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Mansir was spotted around 7:10 p.m. and was detained at gunpoint. He didn’t resist arrest, Gardiner Police Chief Jim Toman said.

Mansir’s next court hearing is scheduled for Oct. 14.

After Thursday’s robbery, Toman and Kennebec County Sheriff Randall Liberty said there was a possibility it was connected to Monday’s robbery of the pharmacy at Goggin’s IGA on Water Street in Randolph.

Based on Thursday night’s interview, though, Mansir was determined to not have been involved in the Monday robbery.

Now police are tracking down “a multitude” of leads in the Monday case, Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Ryan Reardon said, but no suspect has yet been identified. That robber has been described as a white man, approximately 5-feet-11 and weighing 160 to 170 pounds.

There have been three pharmacy robberies in the greater Augusta area this month, starting with an Aug. 3 robbery at the Rite Aid on U.S. Route 202 in Manchester. Police are seeking a Belgrade man in connection with that robbery.

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Before that, the last pharmacy robbery in the area was in November in Augusta, when the Osco pharmacy in the Shaw’s supermarket on Western Avenue was robbed twice in two days.

A Gardiner man pleaded guilty to those robberies in April.

There were a record 58 pharmacy robberies in Maine in 2012. Augusta had the statewide high of nine. The rate of pharmacy robberies has plunged since, which some in law enforcement have attributed to heroin’s rise as a cheaper substitute for those addicted to prescription drugs, particularly oxycodone, a painkiller.

On Thursday, Liberty said the recent spate of robberies doesn’t appear to be linked to a resurgence. He said his office’s recent interviews with addicts indicate a lasting pattern of heavy heroin use and a downward trend of prescription drug abuse over the last few years.

Michael Shepherd — 370-7652

mshepherd@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @mikeshepherdme


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