AUGUSTA — Police found a semiautomatic handgun in a barbecue grill and a silver-handled, fixed blade hunting knife in a couch where a suspect in an armed burglary last week was sitting.
That’s according to court affidavits filed in a case in which two Pennsylvania men are charged with committing armed burglary with a firearm at a city apartment last week.
Bail remained at $25,000 cash each after Darvent Emanuel Cummings, 21, of Stroudsburg, Pa., and Tyrone R. Wilkins, 22, of East Stroudsburg, Pa., made initial court appearances Monday by video in Kennebec County Superior Court.
“The primary reason for these bails would be the lack of connection to the state of Maine and the seriousness of the offense,” said Acting District Attorney Alan Kelley.
They were arrested Friday and charged with a felony count of burglary, which carries a penalty of up to 30 years in prison, as well as criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon, and theft by unauthorized taking or transfer.
Kelley said a residential burglary is normally a lesser class B offense, but Maine’s criminal code stipulates that a person who commits burglary while armed with a firearm or who knows that an accomplice is armed can be charged with class A burglary.
Kelley said the charges are preliminary and different ones might be presented to a grand jury.
The two men were arrested Friday after two women reported the incident at 5:39 p.m.
Three men had forced their way into their Chase Avenue apartment and threatened them with knives and a handgun, according to affidavits by Augusta police officers Nathan Walker and Peter Cloutier.
The women told police the men drove away in a sedan with a pink Maine registration plate.
Police went to a Washington Street apartment, where they previously interviewed a person they believe to be the third burglar, and found the two Pennsylvania men in a bedroom there.
At the Washington Street unit, a neighbor told police one man had put an item in the porch area Police Sgt. Christopher Shaw found a black 9-mm semiautomatic handgun in a barbecue grill on that porch.
The burglary victims identified Wilkins and Cummings as the men who had threatened them, and indicated that Wilkins had been armed with the handgun and Cummings had held the knife at the Chase Avenue apartment.
Betty Adams — 621-5631
badams@centralmaine.com
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