LEWISTON — A Rumford man accused of snatching the purse of a teenager at the Auburn Mall in February pleaded not guilty Friday to related charges.

Mark Sinclair, 22, formerly of Peru, was indicted this week by an Androscoggin County grand jury. He appeared Friday in 8th District Court wearing blue jail clothes.

He is being held at Androscoggin County Jail in Auburn in lieu of $3,000 cash bail. His attorney for the day, Lorne Fairbanks, asked that Sinclair’s bail be reviewed at a future hearing.

A July hearing is scheduled in the case for pretrial review.

Sinclair faces two charges of robbery, both felonies, one punishable by up to 30 years in prison; the other, 10 years.

He also was charged with misdemeanor assault and violation of condition of release.

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A 17-year-old boy from Auburn was identified as an accomplice. He has been charged with felony criminal conspiracy to commit robbery.

Sinclair snatched the purse of Lili-Anne Tyler, 16, of Canton after knocking her to the ground in the mall parking lot, according to a police report in court records. Tyler sustained a cut on her knee. She had $10 and personal items in the stolen purse, police said.

Sinclair fled the scene with his accomplice in a tan Volvo that had been reported stolen in Lewiston. The car was found a day later parked behind the Rite Aid on Main Street in Lewiston, police said.

Two days after that, police stopped Sinclair and a juvenile who were in a different stolen vehicle.

The juvenile told police he had driven the Volvo during the mall robbery, according to police. The juvenile said Sinclair had used a fake knife while committing the robbery of the girl.

The juvenile told police where he and Sinclair had thrown the girl’s purse.

Sinclair told police stealing the purse had been the juvenile’s idea. He said he had worn a black hoodie and had tied a red bandanna over the lower part of his face, both items provided by the juvenile, he said.

Tyler said she and her mother, Jillette Tyler, also of Canton, were returning to their car from shopping at the mall when a man got out of a nearby bar and ran up to her, demanding that she give him her purse. She dropped her other bags, but tried to hold onto her purse, she told police.

cwilliams@sunjournal.com


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