PORTLAND – Drug agents say Bates College professor Linda Williams has been distributing cocaine and crack since June 2002.
A 50-year-old tenured assistant music professor at the Lewiston college, Williams appeared in U.S. District Court Monday morning for her initial appearance on three drug-trafficking charges.
According to a police affidavit, Williams had been helping two men from Jamaica sell crack and cocaine to people in the Lewiston and Augusta areas by keeping the drugs at her Bardwell Street home, conducting deals when they were not in town and allowing people to use her car to pick up drugs in Boston and other locations.
Drug agents arrested Williams Friday night after learning that she was expecting to conduct a $1,000 deal with one of three informants who has been working with police on the investigation.
“She was absolutely dumbfounded when they arrived at her house. She is still in shock,” said Neria Douglass, the Auburn lawyer who represented Williams at Monday’s brief court appearance.
Monday’s court hearing was delayed nearly an hour because Douglass wasn’t feeling well and thought that she might faint. A team of paramedics arrived, and the courtroom was cleared while they attended to Douglass.
Within minutes, Douglass was feeling better, and Williams was brought to the courtroom.
Handcuffed and wearing a jail uniform and jacket, she did not enter a plea at the hearing. That will come later if she is indicted by a federal grand jury.
Douglass said Williams will plead innocent when the time comes.
The Auburn lawyer said her client is not any type of drug kingpin.
“I have a lot of questions about what is going on here,” Douglass said. “This may be the case of someone who was just good-hearted.”
Douglass was referring to Williams’ relationship with Easton Wilson and Roderick Allen, two Jamaican men who lived with Williams at her Lewiston home for brief periods of time between June 2002 and April 2003.
According to an affidavit filed by Brian Featheringham, a special agent for the United States Customs Service, both men were involved in a drug operation that included importing cocaine and crack from Jamaica and distributing it in places throughout Maine.
Wilson has also been charged with various drug-trafficking charges and he is scheduled to go to trial in federal court in Bangor. Police have not caught up with Allen, but a warrant has been issued for his arrest, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Jon Toof.
How Williams met Wilson and Allen men and what her relationship was with them is unknown.
According to the affidavit, drug agents learned about Williams through three informants who had either been working with the two men or buying drugs from them.
One informant told police that he met Williams through his roommate in June 2002. He claims that he wrote her a check, she cashed it and the three of them bought crack in Sabattus and smoked it at Williams’ house.
Later that week, they got more drugs by trading items they had bought at Wal-Mart, including a television and DVD player, the affidavit says.
Police claim that in July 2002 Williams made a deal with Wilson to keep drugs at her house while he was in New York and dole them out to Allen in pre-packaged $50 rocks. Allen would then sell them, the affidavit says.
But, according to police, Williams eventually started selling the drugs to people directly.
Drug agents sent an informant wearing a body wire to buy drugs from Williams on separate occasions in April. Police claim that Williams sold the informant crack both times after retrieving the drugs from under a breakfast counter in her kitchen.
On April 9, the informant told Williams that he would return on April 11 with another $1,000, the affidavit says. Williams was arrested that night and she spent the weekend at the Cumberland County Jail in Portland.
She has been charged with one count of conspiring to distribute cocaine and crack and two counts of distributing cocaine and crack. Each charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine.
A federal judge agreed Monday to set Williams’ bail at $25,000. As conditions of bail, she cannot use any drugs or alcohol and she cannot leave the state.
A music professor at Bates since 1996, Williams was scheduled to leave for South Africa this week to do research for a book that she is writing on female African American musicians. Douglass said she hoped that Williams would be able to post bail by Tuesday, but the trip would have to be canceled.
“This is a person who has a very full and rewarding life,” Douglass said. “This has already seriously affected her.”
She received her doctoral degree from Indiana University in Bloomington. Her research focuses on the impact of American jazz on musical cultures of Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Cape Town, Africa.
She has made several CDs and teaches courses on ethnomusicology, African-American and African music and culture, and black women in music.
Bates College spokesperson Bryan McNulty said college officials learned about Williams’ arrest Friday night. He said the college has no reason to believe that anyone else from the college was involved.
A few Bates employees were in the courtroom Monday.
According to McNulty, Williams’ employment status has not changed.
“She is presumed innocent until proven guilty,” he said.
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