The 69-year-old man charged with robbing Shaw’s Supermarket in Bangor in July was indicted Thursday by the Penobscot County grand jury.
George Frederick Gatcomb Jr., who has spent the past 42 years in prison, was on federal probation at a re-entry center in Bangor when he allegedly left without permission June 12, according to documents filed in the U.S. District Court in Bangor. The federal re-entry center for men is located on the campus of the Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center.
About a month later, on the morning of July 6, he allegedly entered the Main Street supermarket and gave an employee a note demanding money, Bangor police said after his arrest. The service desk employee who received the note, told him she had no money, turned around, walked into the back room and called police, according to court documents.
Gatcomb, who told police he’d been living at a homeless shelter, left the store and waited outside for Bangor police to arrive.
He was indicted on one count of Class B robbery. He is expected to be arraigned Nov. 6 at the Penobscot Judicial Center
Gatcomb claimed to have a gun but no weapon was displayed. If he had brandished a gun, Gatcomb could have been charged with Class A robbery.
He remained Thursday at the Penobscot County Jail unable to post $10,000 cash bail.
Gatcomb was sentenced Feb. 20, 1997, in U.S. District Court in Bangor to five years in federal prison after he admitted to threatening federal and state judges three years earlier, according to the Bangor Daily News archives. He threatened to blow up the U.S. Marshal’s Office, located in the Margaret Chase Smith Federal Building on Harlow Street.
Gatcomb was ordered to serve the federal sentence after he completed a 15-year sentence on state charges for a sexual assault on a cellmate at the Maine State Prison, then located in Thomaston. Gatcomb also was ordered to serve eight years in Maine for an assault on a corrections officer once he completed the sentence for the sexual assault.
Gatcomb, a Vietnam veteran, gained notoriety in the 1970s when he was committed to what was then called the Bangor Mental Health Institute. He escaped from there 21 times, according to the Bangor Daily News archives.
If convicted of the Shaw’s robbery, Gatcomb faces up to 10 years in a Maine prison. In addition, his federal supervised release could be revoked, and he could be sent back to federal prison.
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