AUBURN — A judge said Thursday she sympathized with a Monmouth man who pleaded guilty to robbing a CVS pharmacy in Lewiston and a Hannaford pharmacy in China.

Troy J. Severance, 37, said he was addicted to painkillers for a decade after being prescribed them by a doctor for a medical problem.

Justice Joyce Wheeler said in Androscoggin County Superior Court that she, too, had been prescribed painkillers for two months and experienced withdrawal symptoms when she stopped taking them.

“The doctor who prescribed it (to Severance) should be standing here as well,” Wheeler told him.

Severance told her he’d been clean for the year he’d been in Androscoggin County Jail awaiting trial on charges of robbery and stealing drugs. He told the judge he takes nothing for the pain, and practices “mind over matter.”

“I salute you for standing up today,” Wheeler said, referring to his one-year sobriety.

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“I’ve had a long time to think about it,” he said.

Severance pleaded guilty to charges related to the pharmacy robberies in Lewiston and China. Both charges were Class B felonies, each punishable by up to 10 years in prison. He also pleaded guilty to two charges of stealing drugs, a Class C crime, each punishable by up to five years in prison.

In a plea agreement with prosecutors, Severance will serve three years of an eight-year sentence, followed by three years of probation. He will be credited with the one year he has spent in jail awaiting trial. During his probation, Severance will be barred from having alcohol and illegal drugs. He will be prohibited from setting foot in Hannaford or CVS stores without permission from his probation officer. He must have no contact with Dakota Madore, 19, also of Monmouth, a co-defendant in the two robbery cases.

Madore pleaded guilty in January to both pharmacy robberies and was admitted to participate in Drug Court.

He told police he had threatened a Hannaford pharmacy clerk in China in April 2016 and committed a similar robbery at a CVS in Lewiston a month later.

Police said in both heists, Madore and Severance committed the robberies in an attempt to obtain the painkiller oxycodone.

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At the Hannaford pharmacy in China, a man in a hoodie, wearing latex gloves demanded “Oxys” from the clerk, according to officials.

In the Lewiston robbery, investigators said one of the men entered the CVS store on Sabattus Street wearing sunglasses, a mask and a hood over his head. He showed a note to the pharmacist, demanding oxycodone and saying he didn’t want to shoot anybody. No weapon was displayed, police said.

The pharmacist turned over an undisclosed amount of the drug before the suspect fled on foot, police said.

Police later found Severance at a Winthrop motel and arrested him.

Madore was tracked down in Wales and taken into custody.

cwilliams@sunjournal.com

Troy Severance

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