State police this week arrested a 22-year-old Rhode Island man on charges he robbed a North Stonington gas station at gunpoint last month.

Jesse O'Meara of 521 Main St., Hopkinton, R.I., turned himself in to state police in Montville on Tuesday to face charges of first-degree robbery and sixth-degree larceny. Police had a warrant for his arrest.

Police said O'Meara entered the Citgo gas station at 324 Clarks Falls Road in North Stonington on the evening of Jan. 16 with a red mask covering his face and armed with a handgun. He demanded cash and Newport cigarettes from the clerk and fled on foot, police said.

State police later received an anonymous tip from its Crime Stoppers tip line that O'Meara was the culprit. During their investigation, detectives with the state police Eastern District Major Crime Squad visited O'Meara at his home. They matched his shoe tread to tracks left in the gas station and also found a box of Newport cigarettes in his car. Police said they matched the Connecticut tax stamp identification number from the cigarettes to the store where they were stolen.

Confronted with the evidence, police said O'Meara confessed to the crime and said he was stealing to pay back a drug dealer he owed "a couple thousand dollars." O'Meara told police the gun used in the robbery was a pellet gun.

O'Meara remains held in lieu of a $100,000 bond and is due to appear March 14 in New London Superior Court.

— Greg Smith