WATERVILLE — A Massachusetts man pleaded guilty this week in federal court in Bangor to possessing one of the more than a dozen handguns that were stolen last year from a pawn shop in downtown Waterville, federal prosecutors said in a statement.
Twenty-one-year-old Jadin Andino of West Springfield, Massachusetts, entered his plea Monday in U.S. District Court to a charge of knowingly possessing a stolen firearm, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Maine.
Andino took possession of a 9 mm firearm from one of the people involved in the April 2022 robbery of J.R.’s Trading & Pawn at 100 Elm St. in Waterville, prosecutors said.
He faces up to 10 years in prison followed by three years of supervised release. A sentencing date has not been scheduled.
Two men were arrested in Massachusetts in April for their roles in burglarizing the pawn shop, authorities said.
Taken into custody were 20-year-old Damiean Marcial-Alexander, who authorities said was a resident of Waterville and also Springfield, Massachusetts, and 21-year-old Ryan Ansart of West Springfield.
Each was charged with a federal count of theft of firearms from a licensed firearms dealer. Their cases have not yet gone to trial.
Waterville police were involved in the investigation along with Springfield police and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The pawn shop was burglarized when two men wearing masks broke in through a front window. They used a hammer to break a glass display case to gather the guns, authorities said at the time.
A criminal complaint on file in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts said 15 firearms were stolen: six revolvers and nine semiautomatic pistols.
State and federal authorities had executed a search warrant at Ansart’s residence in September 2022. Several firearms were found there, including two of the guns taken from J.R.’s Trading, and Ansart was charged with several state offenses, including possession of a machine gun, the complaint said.
A cellphone confiscated from Ansart contained photographs that showed Ansart and Marcial-Alexander displaying the weapons stolen from J.R.’s Trading, according to the complaint.
Marcial-Alexander lived across the street from J.R.’s Trading at the time the burglary occurred.
Authorities said the pair sold some of the guns in the weeks afterward.
Investigators relied on an informant, text messages between Marcial-Alexander and Ansart, and Marcial-Alexander’s Instagram messages to implicate the pair, the complaint said.
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
