A Dresden woman who wrote a robbery note for her brother-in-law and checked to see if there was a line of customers at the Bath Walgreens Pharmacy counter before he robbed it, was sentenced Thursday to three months in federal prison.

Devin Alexander, 24, had pleaded guilty on July 17 to conspiracy to interfere with commerce by robbery. A sentencing hearing was held Thursday in U.S. District Court in Portland.

U.S. District Court Judge George Z. Singal sentenced her to three months in prison followed by three years of supervised release.

Alexander remains free on bail and is to report to begin her sentence on Feb. 26.

Her attorney, Michael Whipple, said Alexander was ecstatic she got such a short sentence.

“She did everything in her power to mitigate the harm that she caused to her unwitting victims,” Whipple said. “It was her personal attributes that carried the day.”

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Whipple said Alexander has been in counseling since her arrest.

Nicholas Alexander, 24, of Dresden, was sentenced earlier this month in the same court to 28 months in prison and three years of supervised release.

The robbery occurred June 14, when Nicholas Alexander handed a pharmacist a note saying, “You have 20 seconds to give me all your oxycodone 15s and 30s or I will blow your (expletive) brains out.”

The robbery netted 11 bottles of oxycodone tablets, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Police found Nicholas Alexander about 12 hours later at a Wiscasset motel. He told them he committed the robbery and was addicted to the medication, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig M. Wolff.

“Investigators subsequently found almost 600 oxycodone pills between the mattress and the box spring in the motel room,” Wolff wrote in court document describing the robber and arrest.

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Devin Alexander, who is married to Nicholas Alexander’s brother Nate, was arrested two days later.

In a court filing seeking a lower sentence for Devin Alexander, Whipple refers to Nicholas Alexander as “the so-called mastermind or leader.” Whipple also references another woman, whom he refers to as “a planner and getaway driver.” However, the Alexanders were the only people charged in the robbery.

“The planning, from Ms. Alexander’s part, involved a limited and unsophisticated conversation involving robbing the Walgreens Pharmacy,” Whipple wrote. “Ms. Alexander was then asked to write a short demand note. She did so without any thought or consideration. She was then asked to walk into the store and scout it out. The planning, if it can be called planning, appears to have commenced only a short time prior to the robbery itself. The evidence suggests that her scouting involved only determining if there was a line at the pharmacy counter.”

He said Devin Alexander called Nicholas Alexander from her cellphone and told him it was safe to commit the robbery.

“What commenced as a joke or more accurately a fantasy, quickly escalated into a nightmare,” Whipple wrote.

A number of relatives and friends wrote to the court saying Devin Alexander deserved a lesser sentence and that her children needed her at home.

Betty Adams — 621-5631 badams@centralmaine.com Twitter: @betadams

 


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