A New Hampshire woman will serve two years of probation after admitting to importing fentanyl – a potent and often deadly narcotic – to Wiscasset.
Tabitha Brooks, 29, of Farmington, N.H., pleaded guilty to class C illegal importation of scheduled drugs Sept. 28, according to court documents. A second count of class B unlawful trafficking in schedule W drugs (fentanyl) was dismissed.
Justice Daniel Billings sentenced Brooks Monday, Nov. 9 to three years in prison, all suspended, plus two years of probation.
Brooks’ probation conditions prohibit the possession or use of alcohol or illegal drugs and subject her to random searches and tests. The conditions also require substance-abuse counseling. If she violates probation, she could serve up to the full three years in prison.
Brooks’ sentencing concludes the prosecution of four individuals indicted for trafficking fentanyl in Wiscasset after the seizure of fentanyl, packaging material, and scales at the Schooner Inn Sept. 25, 2014.
Fermin A. “Chevy” Sawtell, 40, formerly of Bath, Dresden, and Wiscasset, is serving a 5 1/2-year sentence at the Maine State Prison. Sawtell was the only defendant to plead guilty to a trafficking charge. He has prior convictions for felony drug and sex crimes.
Chad L. Hedman, 38, of Augusta, and Amy M. Varney, 21, of Woolwich, pleaded guilty to lesser charges and reached agreements known as deferred dispositions under which both appear to have an opportunity to avoid jail.
Brooks’ involvement in the case is not clear, although Sawtell and Varney were picking up fentanyl in Rochester, N.H., where Brooks was living at the time, and bringing it back to Wiscasset, according to court documents.
Law enforcement and public health officials consider fentanyl extremely dangerous. Fentanyl-related deaths in Maine nearly quintupled from nine in 2013 to 43 in 2014, according to the Maine Attorney General’s Office. There were 26 deaths primarily attributable to fentanyl in the first half of 2015.
“Fentanyl is the most potent opioid available – 30-50 times more potent than heroin,” according to the Maine Attorney General’s Office. “Police and prosecutors report that the fentanyl spike is largely due to non-pharmaceutical fentanyl being sold on the streets as a white powder and represented to be heroin.”
The defendants in the Wiscasset case were doing exactly that – representing fentanyl as heroin – and did not appear to know it was fentanyl, according to the prosecutor, Maine Assistant Attorney General Jamie Guerrette.