OAKLAND — A 33-year old Oakland man has been sentenced to seven years in prison and three years of supervised release for a robbery which occurred 12 years ago, U.S. Attorney Halsey B. Frank announced on Tuesday.

According to court documents, Michael E. Algiere entered the Oakland Pharmacy on Oct. 31, 2007, wearing a black ski mask, a hooded sweatshirt and camouflage gloves. He approached the pharmacy counter, brandished a knife and demanded oxycodone from the pharmacist on duty. He made away with several bottles of Roxicodone, Oxycontin and Percocet.

The Maine State Police Crime Laboratory (MSPCL) found DNA on a ski mask and knife that were recovered by police near the crime scene and loaded the DNA profile into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) but were unable to match it to a known offender profile. CODIS contains DNA profiles of convicted offenders and arrestees and is used by the crime lab frequently to compare unknown profiles from unsolved cases against known profiles in CODIS.

In February 2017, a CODIS comparison revealed that the DNA taken from the ski mask and knife matched DNA collected from Algiere and was confirmed after federal investigators collected an additional DNA sample from the defendant.

Algiere pleaded guilty to the charges on April 24, 2019, and was sentenced by Judge Lance E. Walker in Bangor.

This case was investigated by the Oakland Police Department, the FBI and the MSPCL.