A Waterville man was sentenced to three years in prison for conspiring to steal guns from a licensed firearms dealer downtown in 2022, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maine said Monday in a news release.

Damiean Marcial-Alexander, 22, was sentenced to three years in prison followed by three years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay $17,253.37 in restitution.

Marcial-Alexander pleaded guilty on May 30, 2024.

In April 2022, Marcial-Alexander and a coconspirator broke into J.R.’s Trading & Pawn at 100 Elm St. in downtown Waterville and stole multiple firearms, prosecutors said. They used a hammer to break a glass display case to gather the guns, authorities said at the time.

Marcial-Alexander lived across the street from J.R.’s Trading at the time the burglary occurred.

According to a theft/loss report submitted by the store owner to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, 15 firearms were reported stolen, including six revolvers and nine semi-automatic pistols. Evidence collected included Instagram and text messages planning the theft, including a map to the location from Marcial-Alexander’s apartment.

Marcial-Alexander and Ryan Ansart, 22, of West Springfield, Massachusetts, were arrested in Massachusetts in 2023 and charged with the burglary.

A cellphone confiscated from Ansart contained photographs that showed Ansart and Marcial-Alexander displaying the stolen weapons, according to a criminal complaint filed in the case.

Investigators relied on an informant, text messages between Marcial-Alexander and Ansart, and Marcial-Alexander’s Instagram messages to further implicate the pair.

Authorities said the pair sold some of the guns in the weeks after the burglary.

Ansart pleaded guilty on Aug. 22, 2024, to his role in the conspiracy and theft. He is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 11.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigated the case with assistance from the Waterville Police Department, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.