A man arrested in connection with a pharmacy robbery in Gardiner last week is now also suspected of holding up an Augusta pharmacy earlier this month.

Rudger Ellis, 21, of Gardiner, was charged Friday with robbing the Rite Aid at 9 Spring St., Gardiner, on Wednesday.

In a Sunday news release, Deputy Chief Jared Mills of the Augusta Police Department said city detectives helped Gardiner police arrest Ellis, and that Augusta police now suspect Ellis of robbing a Rite Aid pharmacy on North Belfast Avenue on Feb. 7.

Mills said Ellis has not yet been charged in connection with the Augusta robbery, where the suspect was described as a man in a gray hoodie sweatshirt with his face covered who was approximately six feet tall.

That was the first pharmacy robbery in the city since September, when the same Rite Aid was robbed, followed by another one on Hospital Street approximately 20 minutes later. In January, Dominic J. Pomerleau, 21, of Augusta, pleaded guilty to those robberies in federal court.

The Gardiner robber was initially described as being 5 feet 9 inches tall, weighing 160 pounds and wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt. That store hadn’t been robbed since August, when Jesse Mansir, 31, of Gardiner, was arrested the same day and charged with the robbery.

In 2012, Augusta saw nine of Maine’s record 58 pharmacy robberies. But that number plunged in 2013 and 2014, a drop which has been attributed to heroin becoming a cheaper substitute for people addicted to prescription painkillers.

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