BANGOR (AP) – A 21-year-old rapper who eluded police for more than a year after a $32 street robbery in Bangor was being held in lieu of $25,000 cash bail after his arrest outside an Orono club where he had just performed.

Duane Narvel Brown, who performed under the name “D Black” and advertised himself as a Boston-based rapper, was taken into custody early Saturday after he exited the Bear Brew Pub.

“He got to perform,” Orono Police Chief Gary Duquette said. “As he was getting into a cab, he was grabbed. He fought a little bit.”

Brown appeared Monday in Penobscot County Superior Court, where he pleaded not guilty to robbery, criminal threatening and theft.

He is wanted in Cumberland County for failure to appear in court on a concealed-weapon charge, an incident alleged to have occurred after the Bangor robbery.

Bangor and Orono police, assisted by the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency, the Maine State Police and the State Fire Marshals Office, converged on the pub’s Club SOMA in response to information that Brown would be performing.

Bangor Detective Paul Kenison said he believed Brown has been living in the Boston area but performing occasionally in Maine.

Brown was last seen in Brewer on Dec. 2, 2005, three days after two men robbed a pedestrian of $32 on Essex Street in Bangor. Brown, who allegedly pointed a pellet gun at the victim, eluded authorities when they went to a Brewer apartment to arrest him.

Melvin Gay, 20, who turned himself in to Bangor police two days after the robbery, told police that he and Brown intended to scare a man who was walking ahead of them.

Gay pleaded guilty to robbery and was sentenced in May to seven years in prison with all but 18 months suspended.

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