SOUTH PARIS — A Rumford man accused of robbing a woman at gunpoint in Paris in January was charged with armed robbery.
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Brian L. Welch Rumford Police Department photo
An Oxford County grand jury handed up an indictment Friday charging Brian Lee Welch, 37, of robbery, a felony punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
The grand jury also charged Welch with criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon and reckless conduct with a firearm, each felony punishable by up to five years in prison.
Welch also faces a misdemeanor charge of theft by unauthorized taking.
According to court papers, Welch used a gun to rob a woman on Jan. 8 in Paris. He is also charged with stealing two “musical angels” and a glass basket.
He was arrested in February after local and state police surrounded an apartment building in Rumford.
Welch surrendered shortly after a state police tactical team ordered him out of a second-floor apartment, once the first floor unit had been evacuated of tenants.
Police seized firearms and ammunition from the apartment in which Welch had been holed up.
Welch is free on $10,000 cash bail. No date has been scheduled for his arraignment on the charges.
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