AUBURN — Two men charged with trying to rob a pair of pedestrians in downtown Lewiston, including a newspaper carrier, pleaded guilty to crimes in connection to the two separate incidents.

Darren Lovejoy, 23, of 149 Buckfield Road, Turner, pleaded guilty Monday to a misdemeanor charge of assault. He was sentenced to 30 days at Androscoggin County Jail and fined $300. He’s expected to start serving his sentence on Friday.

Two felony robbery charges against him were dismissed by prosecutors who said neither of the victims could identify Lovejoy. The only evidence of his involvement was murky video from a surveillance camera.

Co-defendant Thomas Andrew Farrington, 29, of Oxford Street, pleaded guilty last week to two counts of robbery, Class B. Prosecutors are recommending he be sentenced to eight years in prison and serve up to three years of that term while suspending the remainder, plus three years probation. Farrington is free to argue before a judge for a shorter prison stay. Prosecutors recommended that the sentence for the second robbery count run concurrent with the first.

Two other charges brought by a grand jury against Farrington were dismissed.

His case was continued for sentencing.

Farrington made statements linking himself to both incidents, prosecutors said. Farrington said Lovejoy, who had been with him during the incidents, begged him not to commit the robberies, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors also are seeking to have Farrington serve three years for violating his probation for an assault conviction in Kennebec County last year.

Kenneth Drum, 39, told police he was distributing Sun Journal newspapers on College Street at about 2:30 a.m. on April 26 when he noticed two men sporting baseball caps following him. When he was near the Central Fire Station, the men approached him and told him to give them everything he had or they would stab him with a knife and slit his throat.

Drum said he defended himself with an umbrella and ran into the nearby Oak Street parking garage where there were other carriers picking up their newspapers. The two men ran away and ducked into an alley behind Victor News on Park Street. Drum said he never saw a weapon.

Another witness, Daniel Konopka, 23, said two men fitting the same description approached him that morning in downtown Lewiston and asked him for a cigarette. He offered to walk to a store to buy them for the men, but they asked him for money. He said he had none. They told him to give them everything in his pockets or “they would beat the hell out of” him, according to a sworn police affidavit. The two men grabbed him and tried to pull him into an alley, but he shook loose and ran down Lisbon Street and stopped when he spotted a police cruiser.

The men never showed a weapon, Konopka told police.

Police arrested Lovejoy and Farrington whose clothing fit the descriptions given by the victims.

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