Two people arrested after a Waterville police officer pretending to be delivering a pizza knocked on a hotel room door and, when the door was opened, saw drugs in the room pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges Thursday.
One of them, Gibril Darboe, 21, of Bronx, New York, was sentenced to five years in prison after making a conditional guilty plea Thursday to felony aggravated drug trafficking, and lesser charges related to the March 1 bust in Waterville.
Darboe’s attorney, William Bagdoyan, said he filed a motion to suppress the evidence gathered at the hotel room because, he said, police entered the room illegally, without probable cause, but the motion was denied. He said he plans to appeal that issue to the Maine Law Court.
Christopher Coleman, an assistant district attorney, said police went to a room at the Best Western Hotel March 1 looking to check on a woman out of jail on bail conditions that included she be subject to random searches by police and that she not possess drugs. The hotel room was rented to the woman, but she was not there at the time of the bust, police said.
Coleman said police were concerned the woman wouldn’t open the door if they said they were police, so one of them dressed as a pizza delivery worker and knocked on the door and said “pizza.”
Darboe opened the door and, Coleman said, police saw a package of what appeared to contain drugs on the floor. Also in the room were Darboe, Brooke
Knight, 27, of Hartland, and Larry Munn Jr., 37, of St. Albans all of whom, Coleman said, were out on bail.
Police said Darboe had fentanyl on him, as well as a loaded Kel-Tec handgun.
They said Knight and Munn also had fentanyl on them, and Knight also had crack cocaine on her.
Knight pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of unlawful furnishing illegal drugs and violating conditions of release. She was sentenced to six months imprisonment on the violating conditions of release charge and agreed to a deferred disposition of the felony furnishing charge. If she complies with the terms of the deferred disposition, which includes participation in the Criminogenic Addiction Recovery Academy, or CARA, program which is aimed at helping people break the cycle of rearrest by dealing with their substance abuse and criminal thinking, she will be allowed to serve six months on the felony charge at the same time as her other six month sentence. If not successful, she’d have to serve an additional six months, consecutively.
Cole said a lot of people have been able to successfully address their drug problems and stay out of jail after taking part in the CARA program, and asked Knight if she wanted to do the same. She said yes.
In an unrelated other drug case Thursday, Jheremy Sanchez, 30, of Lawrence, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty to trafficking in a scheduled drug, fentanyl powder, a class B felony. He was sentenced to three years in prison.
Sanchez was arrested with five others May 31 when Waterville police raided three apartments, two on Gray Street and one on Summer Street.
Coleman said Waterville police acting on a search warrant entered the Gray Street apartment of Gloria Pressey, who has also been charged with drug trafficking but whose court hearing scheduled for Thursday was delayed. Police found Sanchez and two others in a back bedroom, with a blender that contained fentanyl, and they also had crack cocaine.
In another plea Thursday, Jeremy J Vashon, 42, of Fairfield, pleaded guilty to unlawful furnishing of scheduled drugs, fentanyl and criminal operating under the influence, Feb. 3 in Winslow.
A state prosecutor said Vashon was stopped by police because his vehicle had a taillight that was not functioning and an officer said his eyes were red and he failed a field sobriety test.
Police searched his vehicle and found a light blue powder later determined to be fentanyl. He will receive a one-year deferred disposition in which, if he complies with terms including that he not use or possess drugs, perform 50 hours of community service or make a $500 donation to a charity, the charge will be reduced to a class D crime and he’d be sentenced to 364 days imprisonment, but all of those days suspended. If he does not comply with the deferred disposition terms, he would be sentenced to a class C crime, with his specific sentence open to be determined by a judge. He was also sentenced to a $600 fine and 150 day license suspension.
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