PARIS — Bail was set at $500 or completion of a pretrial services contract for a Peru man charged with aggravated trafficking of scheduled drugs and furnishing counterfeit drugs.
Peter A. Donahue, 25, was arrested Wednesday evening in Rumford and charged with aggravated trafficking of a schedule Z drug and aggravated trafficking or furnishing of counterfeit drugs.
Both charges are punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $5,000.
The trafficking charge was considered “aggravated” because the sale of drugs happened 542 feet from the Hosmer Field Athletic Complex, a designated and posted “safe zone.”
In a police affidavit, Maine Drug Enforcement agent Tony Milligan wrote that MDEA received information from a confidential informant that Donahue was selling heroin and other illegal drugs on the streets of Rumford.
In June, Milligan wrote that the MDEA and a confidential informant set up a controlled purchase of fentanyl from Donahue.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, fentanyl is a powerful, synthetic opioid analgesic that is more potent than morphine. Milligan wrote that fentanyl has been responsible for many overdose deaths in the region.
“I, and other law enforcement officers, observed Donahue, with whom we are familiar, meet with the (confidential informant),” Milligan wrote. “I heard Donahue indicate that the drug he was selling was not heroin, but was actually fentanyl.”
When the informant returned to the MDEA with the fentanyl, Milligan wrote that preliminary field testing of the substance provided inconclusive results, so it was sent to the State Health and Environmental Lab in Augusta, where it was later identified as methocarbamol, a schedule Z drug.
“I spoke with a nurse at the Northern New England Poison Center about the health risks associated with oral or intravenous use of methocarbamol,” Milligan wrote in the affidavit. “She confirmed that methocarbamol is a non-narcotic central nervous system depressant which can cause serious bodily injury or death due to respiratory depression and failure.”
Milligan wrote that because Donahue represented the substance as fentanyl, he would be charged with trafficking in or furnishing counterfeit drugs, along with aggravated trafficking in schedule Z drugs.
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