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AUBURN — A Lewiston man has denied charges stemming from a raid last month on his Pond Road home where drug agents said they found evidence of a methamphetamine lab.

Mark Theriault, 45, of 212 Pond Road appeared in Androscoggin County Superior Court on Tuesday for the first time on a charge of trafficking in a schedule W drug, a Class B crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

He has been free since posting $5,000 cash bail at Androscoggin County Jail shortly after his arrest. Bail conditions include no use or possession of illegal drugs and that he is subject to random searches and testing for drugs.

A drug agent from the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency had noticed that Theriault and Ethel Hallock had made significant purchases of pseudoephedrine.

Two agents went to the Pond Road home and talked to Hallock, 51, who shares the home and was charged along with Theriault.

Hallock told the agents she used methamphetamine and bought pseudoephedrine to give to Theriault so that he could make meth at their home, where it had been made before, according to a sworn police affidavit.

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Another agent had interviewed Theriault, who admitted that he made meth using a so-called “one-pot” method at the home. He said he routinely burned all of the leftover material in his yard afterward.

Hallock was arrested at the home. Agents executed a search warrant and found some of the gear used to make the drug in the basement. Agents evacuated the building and secured the area.

When Theriault arrived home from working in Bath that day, he was arrested and taken to jail.

The MDEA’s specialized Clandestine Laboratory Response Team went to the home and processed the scene, during which it found two containers used to cook meth.

As much as one gram of the drug was found in the home.

Hallock’s elderly mother lived with her on the first floor of the building. Hallock’s daughter, her daughter’s girlfriend and three children lived on the second floor.

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