ROCKLAND, Maine — The owner of a methadone clinic shut down in August by state and federal authorities pleaded guilty Thursday morning to possession of cocaine.
Angel Fuller McMahan will serve 30 days in jail, with the rest of her 364-day sentence suspended, and will pay a $400 fine for the Class D crime. A more severe Class B charge for possession of more than 14 grams of cocaine, which could have resulted in up to 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine, was dropped.
Additionally, McMahan must forfeit her Ford Escort that was used in a drug transaction witnessed by police on July 13. She also must pay $120 of restitution to the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency and a $20 per month supervision fee and will be on probation for one year.
When she was apprehended, police said McMahan, 42, of Owls Head, possessed about $2,500 worth of cocaine.
Police saw McMahan “conducting a drug deal in a private parking lot along New County Road,” on July 13, and pulled her car over after she left the lot, according to the Maine Department of Public Safety.
James Pease, supervisor of MDEA’s midcoast task force, said the drug transaction occurred somewhere near the Turning Tide methadone clinic, which McMahan owns.
After officers pulled McMahan over, they seized cocaine, some hypodermic needles and her 2000 Ford Escort, according to police.
Meanwhile, in a recently filed civil lawsuit against McMahan, the Maine Department of Health and Human Services is seeking the permanent revocation of Turning Tide’s license. That case was supposed to be heard Thursday after the criminal proceeding, but has been postponed.
Included in court documents filed in Rockland District Court to support the state’s case is a federal Drug Enforcement Administration order that accuses Fuller McMahan of planning to fraudulently order a shipment of methadone for a clinic client in exchange for cocaine. The DEA also accuses Fuller McMahan of buying cocaine from her clinic’s clientele, engaging in “at least three” illegal cocaine transactions and breaking a contract with the DEA that stipulated she would neither enter the clinic nor be in charge of ordering drugs for the clinic.
Fuller McMahan’s lawyer Jay McCloskey said his client denies all of the allegations.
It is unclear if Thursday’s drug conviction will play a role in the civil lawsuit.