Fallen headgear, receipts tell tale
Toolbox
By Brent Curtis STAFF WRITER - Published: September 18, 2009
A discarded bandana and some movie rental receipts led to the arrest of a Middlebury man charged with robbing a convenience store in Addison County last month.
Adam Racine, 23, pleaded innocent Thursday in Rutland District Court to a felony charge of assault and robbery with a weapon. Judge Thomas Zonay granted the prosecution's request to set bail at $50,000 for Racine, who also pleaded innocent Thursday to an unrelated felony aggravated assault charge allegedly committed in July.
The robbery took place on Aug. 19 at the JD's Quick Stop on Route 100 in Hancock, but Racine wasn't arrested until Wednesday, when police took him into custody at his Middlebury home.
While Racine was interviewed by state police the day after the convenience store was robbed at gunpoint, a crucial piece of evidence in the investigation wasn't confirmed until Aug. 31 when the state crime lab determined that Racine's DNA matched a blood stain found on a bandana that police say the gunman wore.
The Quick Stop robbery took place just minutes before the store closed. A store clerk, who was the only person in the Quick Stop when the robbery took place, told police that a man wearing a white bandana with black designs pointed a revolver at her and demanded money from the register, according to a police affidavit.
The clerk told police she refused to open the register, but the gunman rounded the counter and grabbed a pair of bank bags containing small amounts of cash and loose change before fleeing the store.
Police say a passerby witnessed the gunman fleeing and also saw the bandana fall from his face.
In a subsequent interview, the store's owner John Deering told police that a man he had never seen before had entered the shop several times on the day of the robbery. Deering told police the man, who police say was Racine, was married to a woman who lived nearby. Deering found the woman's address by looking up information for her movie rental form.
In an interview with police the day after the robbery, Racine denied robbing the store, but consented to a DNA swab, according to the affidavit.
"Take your sample, I ain't got nothing to hide," Racine told police, according to the affidavit. "You think I would give it to you if I was nervous about it?"
In court on Thursday, Racine's public defender, Mary Kay Lanthier, argued that Racine should be released without bail but on a 24-hour curfew at his parents' house. She said Racine's cooperation with investigators and his appearances at court for prior court cases should give the court confidence that he would appear in the future.
"There is no indication that Mr. Racine is any risk of flight," she said.
But Judge Nancy Corsones said questions about Racine's state of mind during the alleged robbery and during an alleged assault in July when Racine allegedly used a baseball bat to assault a man at the Kampersville Laundromat in Salisbury prompted her to set bail for Racine.
"Were it not for the very strong concerns about the extreme violence in these cases I would not impose $50,000 bail," the judge said.
brent.curtis@rutlandherald.com
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