AUBURN — A Lisbon man who tried to smuggle heroin into jail was sentenced Tuesday to serve two years in prison on related charges.
Damien M. Brown, 40, of 333 Lisbon St. pleaded guilty Tuesday to two felonies: unlawful possession of scheduled drugs and unlawful trafficking in scheduled drugs, each punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
He forfeited $500 cash in proceeds from drug dealing.
Justice Robert Clifford sentenced Brown at Androscoggin County Superior Court to seven years in prison, but suspended five years of that time, as agreed to beforehand by Brown and prosecutors.
When released from prison, Brown is scheduled to be on probation for three years, during which he will be barred from using alcohol or illegal drugs. He also faces random searches by police.
Brown, who has a drug-trafficking conviction from 2011, must complete substance-abuse counseling and treatment, and have no contact with a woman who is also facing drug-trafficking charges.
Two charges against Brown, including aggravated trafficking in scheduled drugs, were dismissed by prosecutors Tuesday. That charge is punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
According to an affidavit written by Lewiston Police Department Patrol Officer Alex Martin-Wallace, he was checking Oct. 19 on the bail of an Ash Street man who was prohibited from having alcohol and illegal drugs. That man told the officer that he wasn’t sure who was at his home. Martin-Wallace told the man he had gotten a tip that someone staying at the man’s apartment had been dealing drugs from there.
The man gave Martin-Wallace permission to search his apartment and handed the officer his door key. Inside the man’s apartment were two women and two men, including Brown. Dozens of crack pipes and evidence of crack smoking littered the apartment. Brown was reclining on an air mattress in the living room. The other man who had been in the apartment told the officer that Brown was carrying crack and heroin in the coin pocket of his basketball shorts.
Brown said Martin-Wallace could search him, adding, “I don’t have anything to hide.”
The officer found $500 cash and a small bag containing a “hard, powdery substance” that he recognized as crack. The officer handcuffed Brown and, getting into his cruiser, the officer told him he could be charged with an additional felony if he were carrying more drugs.
“You found everything,” Brown told him. “There’s nothing else.”
At the Androscoggin County Jail, Martin-Wallace heard a fight break out in the changing room. The corrections officer said Brown had tried to “push something into his anus.”
Brown was sent to St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Lewiston to be cleared for jail. The hospital staff examined Brown, but found no narcotics in his system. Back at the jail, a bag of “powdery brown substance” was found in Brown’s jail-issued shoe before he was locked in his cell. The fecal-covered bag was later found to contain heroin.
The heroin weighed 6.4 grams; the crack 6.6 grams.
cwilliams@sunjournal.com
Damien M. Brown
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