AUBURN — A Lewiston man convicted last week of two gun-related felonies is expected to be sentenced Friday.

Malik Breyon Hollis, 21, of 28 Bartlett St. is being held without bail at Androscoggin County Jail pending sentencing.

Hollis was convicted by a jury in Androscoggin County Superior Court on charges of reckless conduct with a firearm and criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon. Each conviction is punishable by up to five years in prison.

Police said Hollis fired gunshots in the direction of several men late in the morning of May 21, 2016.

Hollis claimed the shooting was self-defense.

Police said in court papers that when they arrived at the scene, they were directed by witnesses to Hollis’ apartment, where they found him hiding under a deflated air mattress that was lying in a third-floor hallway.

Witnesses described the person who fired the gun as someone wearing a red shirt. When he was found, he wasn’t wearing a red shirt, but other details about him matched the witnesses’ identification, police said. Officers searched the building with the consent of the landlord and found a .380-caliber pistol under a raised portion of the floor. They also found two red shirts in the bathroom of the apartment where he had been staying, according to court records.

On the street where witnesses told police the shooter had been standing, officers found two spent shell casings for a .380-caliber gun.

A woman in whose apartment Hollis had been staying said he and his associates had been dealing drugs from the apartment. She said she had seen him and a friend “cutting up” heroin to be packaged and sold a day earlier.

Hollis had told police he had gotten into an argument with some men he didn’t know when he was on College Street. He said they had been harassing him recently for no apparent reason and had hit him with a stick after the argument. He said he left the men, retrieved a gun from his apartment, then returned to where the men were. He said he fired the gun in their direction, but hadn’t intended to hit anybody, only to scare them.

He identified the weapon recovered by police. He also identified one of the red shirts as the one he had been wearing when he fired the gun.

One of the men who had argued with Hollis told police he had been having ongoing issues with him over drug dealing at his College Street home, according to court papers.

The man said Hollis was armed with a stick and a rock, so the man armed himself with a metal pipe and knocked the stick and rock from Hollis’ hands. That was when Hollis ran back to retrieve his gun, the man told police.

The man yelled and three of his friends emerged from the College Street building, armed with a baton and a baseball bat, police said.

Hollis returned, drew a gun and started firing it in the direction of the men, police said.

The men fled to their College Street building and Hollis fled to his Bartlett Street apartment.

Hollis faces several other charges, including violation of condition of release and failure to appear in court. His attorney, James Howaniec, said those charges may be resolved at Hollis’ sentencing hearing Friday.

cwilliams@sunjournal.com

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