PARIS — A Tennessee woman pleaded guilty Wednesday morning at Oxford County Superior Court to felony conspiracy to commit trafficking in heroin.

Courtney Moulton, 24, was one of 15 people arrested in 2015 as part of what officials called the largest drug investigation in Oxford County history.

In exchange for the guilty plea, Assistant Attorney General John Risler said the state would drop an aggravated trafficking of scheduled drugs charge and a criminal conspiracy charge.

Risler added that Moulton will enter into a deferred disposition agreement, which means if Moulton meets certain conditions set by the state, she will have her conspiracy to commit trafficking in a scheduled drug charge downgraded to a drug possession charge.

Risler said that Moulton will be on a deferred disposition for 18 months, or until March 9, 2018.

“If (she) has a successful deferred disposition, she’ll be sentenced to 50 days in jail, with credit for time served, and will have to pay a $400 fine,” Risler said, adding that Moulton had been in jail for 57 days following her January arrest.

The conditions of the deferred disposition agreement include showing regular proof of employment every three months, starting Dec. 15, and testifying about other co-defendants at the request of the state.

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

Between January 2013 and April 2015, the investigation uncovered 15 people 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 Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.

Risler said that if the case had gone to trial, the state would have called MDEA agent Tony Milligan to testify that Moulton, after being arrested in January in Tennessee, spoke with the MDEA and indicated that she had “sold heroin on behalf of the network distribution ring for about a month.”

Risler added, “She told the MDEA that she got the heroin from Dana Ingerson, who got it from Del Hathaway, and she admitted to sending money via wire transfer services that was obtained from heroin sales to other people involved in the conspiracy.”

mdaigle@sunmediagroup.net