Suspect charged again with robbing narcotics from drugstores

A man who was arrested in January in relation to a string of pharmacy robberies has been charged again with holding up three other drugstores.

On Tuesday afternoon, a man told the pharmacist at a drugstore on Crowfoot Terrace N.W. that he was armed and demanded Dilaudid, a narcotic. The man was not given any drugs and peacefully followed a request to leave the store.

About 15 minutes later, a man told the pharmacist at a store in the 8000 block of Country Hills Boulevard N.W. that there would be no trouble if she was co-operative, and demanded drugs. After being given several Dilaudid pills, the man fled in a vehicle.

Witnesses copied the licence plate number down and gave it to police, who tracked down a man in Cochrane.

Robert Gauthier, 34, has been charged with two counts of robbery and three counts of breach of recognizance in connection with Tuesday's cases. Police also laid a third charge of robbery and breach of recognizance for an incident in northwest Calgary last month.

Gauthier was charged in January with eight counts of robbery, eight counts of possessing a controlled substance and one count of possession of a weapon dangerous to public peace after pharmacies in the Signal Hill area, Strathcona Park, Glamorgan and Rosscarrock, as well Cochrane, were robbed between Oct. 17 and Jan. 23.

In those cases, the robbers demanded OxyContin, a highly addictive prescription narcotic.