AUBURN — A Lewiston woman faces a felony drug charge stemming from what police said was the sale of heroin to a woman last fall who nearly died of an overdose.
An Androscoggin County grand jury on Wednesday indicted Casandra Lawrence, 33, of 69 Lincoln St. on a charge of aggravated trafficking in scheduled drugs, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Police said Lawrence sold heroin laced with fentanyl, a narcotic painkiller, to a 23-year-old woman from Brunswick who overdosed on Oct. 26 at about 4:30 p.m. The woman was given the drug Narcan by Lisbon emergency services. Narcan is the commercial name for nalaxone, which is used to counter the effects of opioids such as heroin.
Police had pulled over a car on Canal Street in Lisbon. Lisbon emergency workers had responded to the scene to administer the drug after they learned that the woman had apparently overdosed on heroin.
The woman’s condition improved immediately and she was taken by ambulance to Mid Coast Hospital in Brunswick for further treatment.
Detective William Tapley of the Lisbon Police Department described the circumstances of the overdose in a sworn affidavit.
An Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Department dispatcher had asked for help finding a vehicle that had placed an emergency medical call from the parking lot of the Congregational Church in Durham, Tapley wrote.
The caller reported that the four-door Saturn had left that lot and was heading to Lisbon. A Lisbon lieutenant and reserve officer found the car and identified the three occupants, including the woman who was having a medical crisis. The other occupants told police they were trying to get the woman to the hospital. Lt. Daniel Michel noticed the woman was unresponsive in the back seat of the car, Tapley wrote. Michel requested an ambulance.
One of the occupants of the car gave police a sample of the drug the woman had taken. A field test of the substance confirmed it was heroin.
Tapley learned from interviewing one of the occupants of the car that the Brunswick woman had driven to a convenience store and gas station in Durham to meet with a drug dealer who sold her $70 worth of heroin. One of the other occupants of the car said she had accompanied the Brunswick woman in an effort to keep her from driving while under the influence of the heroin, Tapley wrote.
The Brunswick woman had identified her drug connection as “Casey,” who was later identified as Lawrence.
At about 3:30 p.m. on Oct. 26, the three had driven to the gas station to meet Lawrence. At the station, the woman got out of their car and into a red sedan. She was gone for about 10 minutes, then returned. She snorted the heroin in a portable toilet at the gas station, Tapley wrote.
The woman gave the other two occupants a small amount of heroin, which they snorted.
A few minutes after she began driving back to Brunswick, the woman started to “nod off,” and pulled over into the church parking lot, Tapley wrote. The other two put her in the back seat and one of them started driving to a hospital but was pulled over in Lisbon by police.
Tapley said the Brunswick woman told him that Lawrence had sold her heroin a couple of times before. Lawrence had called her a week earlier asking whether she wanted to buy heroin. The woman bought one-quarter of a gram from Lawrence three times over the course of two weeks for $50, she told Tapley. She had met Lawrence twice at the Durham convenience store and once at Lawrence’s apartment in Lewiston.
Lawrence told Tapley during an interview that she was “just trying to help a friend” who was “dope sick” by locating heroin for her. She said she only charged the woman as much as she had paid for the heroin.
A search of Lawrence’s car turned up used hypodermic needles, a digital scale and a “suspected” drug ledger.
Lawrence was indicted also Wednesday on a charge of violation of condition of release stemming from a felony charge of unlawful possession of scheduled drugs in September.
cwilliams@sunjournal.com
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