CLAREMONT — A Claremont man who has previously been convicted of bank robbery is being held in preventive detention following his arrest on charges of robbing a Claremont gas station and convenience store at knifepoint last month.

James Oberfeldt, 39, of Myrtle Street, faces charges of armed robbery and falsifying evidence for allegedly brandishing a kitchen knife during a robbery of the Pleasant Street Mobile gas station and convenience store on Pleasant Street in the early morning hours of April 30, according to Claremont police.

Video camera footage allegedly shows a man wearing a face mask and plastic bags around his shoes coming into the store, getting a cup of coffee. Then, according to the footage, the man goes behind the checkout counter while holding the coffee in his left hand and a large “kitchen knife” in the other hand and demands that the store clerk had over the money from the cash register, according to a police affidavit.

The man then took the clerk’s cell phone and the store’s landline phone and ran off with the cash, which police described in the news release as a “small amount.”

Police said after the robbery was reported they were able to piece together video footage from various cameras in the neighborhood that captured the suspect fleeing the scene, which aided them in tracing the suspect to Oberfeldt’s residence on Myrtle Street, according to the affidavit.

He is scheduled to appear for an evidentiary hearing on May 17 at Sullivan County Superior Court in Claremont.

Oberfeldt was convicted in federal court in New Hampshire in 2015 for a string of bank robberies around Claremont and Lebanon.

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