Exeter Man Pleads Guilty to Assisting Pharmacy Robbery

Contact: Andrew McCormack
Assistant United States Attorney
Tel: (207) 945-0373

Bangor, Maine:  United States Attorney Thomas E. Delahanty II announced that Clifford Sprague, 37, of Exeter, Maine, pled guilty today in U.S. District Court to being an accessory after the fact to a pharmacy robbery.   An accessory after the fact is a person who, knowing that an offense against the United States has been committed, comforts or assists the offender in order to hinder or prevent his apprehension, trial or punishment.

According to court records, on March 10, 2012, Michael Thompson entered the Rite Aid pharmacy in Guilford, Maine wearing a bandana, a hood, sunglasses and gloves.  He jumped over the pharmacy counter, brandished a large hunting style knife and demanded narcotics.  A pharmacist opened the locker containing narcotics and Thompson filled his back pack with more than $5000 worth of them.  After the robbery, Thompson called Sprague, told him that he had robbed the pharmacy and asked Sprague to pick him up in his car.  Sprague did so.  Shortly after picking up Thompson, Sprague saw a Somerset County Sheriff’s Office vehicle.  Sprague slowed down his vehicle and told Thompson he needed to get out.  Thompson got out of Sprague’s vehicle and fled into the woods.  Later, Sprague used and sold some of the narcotics Thompson stole.

On June 29, 2015, Thompson was sentenced to 82 months in prison for his role in the pharmacy robbery.

The defendant faces up to ten years in prison and a $125,000 fine.  He will be sentenced after the completion of a presentence investigation report by the U.S. Probation Office.

The investigation was conducted by the Piscataquis County Sheriff’s Office, the Maine State Police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Somerset County Sheriff’s Office.