PARIS — An Oxford County Superior Court judge Wednesday sentenced a Milton Plantation man to 10 years in prison, with all but four years suspended, for heroin trafficking.

Scott B. Billings Jr., 24, was arrested in 2015 in what police called the largest drug investigation in Oxford County history.

Billings pleaded guilty Wednesday to two felony charges: aggravated trafficking of heroin and unlawful trafficking in heroin.

The sentence also included three years of probation, Assistant Attorney General David Fisher said.

The probation conditions include no use or possession of illegal drugs, and being subject to random searches to ensure compliance with probation conditions.

Judge Rick Lawrence also partially revoked Billings’ probation in an unrelated case from 2011, when Billings was arrested on three counts of burglary, a count of theft by unauthorized taking or transfer, and two counts of theft by unauthorized taking or transfer.

The partial revocation would result in a two-year prison sentence, with credit for time served.

Billings’ four-year sentence for the drug charges would run consecutively with the two-year partial probation revocation.

According to a statement by Maine Drug Enforcement Agency Director Roy McKinney in 2015, a piece of information provided by a Maine State Police trooper from a motor vehicle stop began a two-year investigation that helped identify and infiltrate a heroin distribution network that was selling points of heroin for $30, half-grams for between $80 and $100, and one-gram quantities for $180.

Between January 2013 and April 2015, the investigation uncovered 15 suspects police believe were responsible for the importation and distribution of 17.8 pounds of heroin throughout Oxford County. That is the equivalent of 80,000 doses with a street value of $3.2 million, according to a statement from Steve McCausland, spokesman for the Department of Public Safety.

Billings was one of 15 suspects arrested in 2014 and 2015 in connection with the heroin distribution network.

If the case had gone to trial, Fisher said that the state would have called MDEA agent Tony Milligan as a witness, along with officers with the Rumford Police Department.

Fisher said that on July 16, 2014, Milligan, with the assistance of other officers and an informant, set up a controlled buy in which the informant would purchase heroin from Billings.

The transaction was recorded and videoed, Fisher said.

Fisher said that on Nov. 18, 2014, Billings sold a half gram of heroin to the same informant.

“On Nov. 20, 2014, Billings was arrested,” Fisher said.

After Billings was read his Miranda rights, Fisher said Billings provided a confession to police.

“He said that he was an opiate addict, and that he was buying heroin because he wanted to get high every day,” Fisher said. “He said that any money he made by selling heroin went toward supplying his own habit, and in order to avoid getting ‘dope-sick,’ he would self-medicate with Suboxone he bought off the street.”

Suboxone is a drug used to treat opiate addiction.

mdaigle@sunmediagroup.net