AUGUSTA — An 18-year-old Augusta man is behind bars on burglary and theft charges after an alert neighbor reported a stranger prowling around next door, police said.

Jordan R. Ellis was arrested as he was bicycling away from the scene, according to an affidavit by Augusta Police Officer Eric Lloyd filed in Kennebec County Superior Court.

Lloyd said he and Officer Paul Doody went to the Blair Road address after the neighbor called police to report the suspicious activity. The neighbor said he heard the neighbor’s dog barking and saw a young man on the property, then contacted the property owner and was told no one should be there.

The neighbor then phoned police and watched as the man tried to open the side and front doors. The neighbor told a police dispatcher he could see the man “rummaging through the residence,” Lloyd wrote, and saw the stranger leave on a bicycle and head toward nearby Riverside Drive.

Lloyd said the burglary suspect, identified as Ellis, initially told him he had walked into the home of a friend but then admitted he did not know who lived there and was looking for money to support his drug habit.

Police found footsteps in the snow leading to an open window at the rear of the home, and the homeowner said the window was not left open that morning.

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“Jordan said he is addicted to 30 mg OxyContin and needs money for pills,” Lloyd wrote. He also said Ellis told him he left without taking anything because he felt guilty about breaking into someone’s home.

Lloyd said he later found a gift card from Dick’s Sporting Goods in the back of his cruiser, where Ellis had been sitting. Ellis told him it was the only thing he took from the house.

Bail was originally set at $1,000 cash, but at an initial hearing Monday, a judge in Kennebec County Superior Court reduced that to $500 cash or $1,000 unsecured with a Maine Pretrial Services contract.

Conditions of bail impose a curfew of 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. Ellis is also banned from contact with the victim and from possession of burglar’s tools.

Betty Adams — 621-5631
badams@centralmaine.com


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