BRUNSWICK, Maine — Brunswick police seized 76 marijuana plants, nearly 100 illegal prescription pills, cash and a number of semiautomatic weapons from the Cumberland Street apartment of a man they arrested March 12 on an outstanding warrant.
Aaron Fickett, 27, of 71 Cumberland St., Apt. 2, faces charges including cultivation of marijuana, trafficking in scheduled drugs and violation of bail conditions, Brunswick Police Detective Rich Cutliffe said Friday. Fickett posted bail for the outstanding warrant charge, and police continue efforts to apprehend him in connection with the ongoing investigation.
Brunswick patrol officers conducting “proactive traffic enforcement” ran Fickett’s license plate on March 12 and found that he was wanted for failure to appear in court on original charges of carrying a concealed weapon and refusing to submit to arrest or detention. Those charges stemmed from an Oct. 15, 2011, incident in Brunswick, Capt. Mark Waltz said Thursday.
Officers lost Fickett’s vehicle, but then noticed it later at 71 Cumberland St. They began knocking on doors, Cutliffe said.
When Fickett answered the door at Apt. 2, “The officers got just overwhelmed with the odor of marijuana,” he said.
Fickett allegedly told police he didn’t live in the apartment and didn’t know who did, so officers conducted a “protective sweep.” In doing so, they noticed two rooms filled with marijuana plants, Cutliffe said.
Fickett was arrested on the warrant and taken to Cumberland County Jail.
In the meantime, Cutliffe obtained a search warrant from the Maine Attorney General’s Office and executed it at approximately 1:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Police allegedly found five loaded guns “strategically placed throughout the apartment,” Cutliffe said. They included a Ruger P94 40-caliber semiautomatic handgun, a FMJ 45-caliber handgun, an Izhmash Siaga 7.62
assault rifle, a Stag 15 5.56 assault rifle and a Browning 12-gauge shotgun.
According to Cutliffe, court records indicate Fickett was arrested in 2008 in Newbury, Mass., after he fled from police, allegedly throwing cocaine and heroin out the car window. He never appeared in court to answer those charges, Cutliffe said, but a warrant was never issued, although he added that after Brunswick officers called Massachusetts, “they will be resubmitting to file for a warrant” on those charges.
Also on Tuesday morning, police allegedly found 76 marijuana plants in the Cumberland Street apartment, nearly an ounce of processed marijuana, $2,400 in cash, scales, a wall safe, a money-counting machine and nearly 100 prescription pills, including methadone, Suboxone, clonazepam and alprazolam. They also allegedly found three ballistic vests and more ammunition.
Cutliffe said Fickett did hold a license to grow medical marijuana, “but he was way out of compliance.”
Officers also seized approximately $5,000 worth of marijuana growing equipment including ductwork and grow lamps, as well as ledgers.
As they searched the apartment on Tuesday morning, officers noticed through a window that an apartment supposed to be vacant contained similar ductwork to that in Fickett’s apartment, Cutliffe said.
Later that morning, detectives returned to the second apartment with the property manager and discovered another 50 plants, more ballistic vests and still more ammunition.
However, by the time detectives were able to execute the search warrant and find the drugs, guns and other items, Fickett had posted bail on the original warrant at Cumberland County Jail. Police continue to search for Fickett.
In a press release issued late Friday afternoon, Waltz said no charges are pending at this time in connection with the search warrant.
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Personal use?
In reading the article there are numerous questions that arise. How was he ever granted a
license to grow “medical marijuana” with his history in another
state? No background checks to obtain the license I assume. If the police were
in the process of obtaining a search warrant why was he released on bond? I am
sure they could have put a detention hold on him considering the circumstances.
Sounds like a complete failure on the part of the criminal justice system here
and in Massachusetts.
He probably needed money to live and it’s more difficult to get a CDL in Maine then most other licenses.
Seems most or all pot growers need SEMI- automatic weapons? Do they use them to plant the stuff? I’ve heard in the old days a farmer would plant his peas early by using a shotgun. Must be a Maine thing.
More folks have weapons that don’t grow, then do. For some reason, the law likes to associate gun and plants. I’ve got Creeping Charlies, Wandering Jews, an Umbrella tree, a Begonia, a model 94, and .357 Ruger. I don’t use my weapons to plant, and I don’t use my plants as weapons.
Ah, but do you have them “strategically placed” so that if somebody comes to get your Wandering Jew you’ll be ready. I understand that you’ll have to place the guns in various because of the wandering nature of the Jew.
LOL…I’ve got my Elephant Ear Bagonia trained to protect all plant matter at any cost! And one best beware of my hybrid Umbrella!!
Leaving the “semi” from in front of automatic is like leaving it off of semi in front of truck, its a big change…. get it right
I’m sorry for showing my ignorance but you see i don’t use or grow pot nor do i do drugs so i didn’t notice the difference. he he
Wait, according to so many posters on this site, people with pot are never involved in violence or other drugs. What happened here?
I reread the article, and still didn’t see where any violence was involved.
And your point is…? The fact of the matter is that this gomer had FIVE LOADED WEAPONS STRATEGICALLY PLACED, along with BALLISTIC VESTS and a large quantity of marijuana and pills. While owning guns and ballistic vests may not be illegal (in most cases) the combination of circumstances are that if this guy had been tipped off, there would have been a real mess to clean up.
The cops said “strategically placed” and “automatic weapons”. Bull. Strategically placed in reality means not in a gun safe. And I will bet dollars to donuts there was not one automatic weapon. I have weapons, but just because there’s a deer in my yard doesn’t mean i’m going to shoot it. It is sensational both to cops and journalist to say words like “strategically placed” and “automatic weapon”. Just because someone grows a plant doesn’t mean they have the will to commit murder. So, your point is?
“Much ado about nothing”
Brunswick use to be such a nice town
I thought
“proactive traffic enforcement” was BS til I saw
“protective sweep.” These sound like words to get around the 4th amendment…
What a guy. He gives drug dealing a bad name.
The Book. Throw it.
Is there really any drug dealer that has a “good name”? Maybe instead of throwing that book you ought to read it. Maybe it will help conjure up some sort of statement that actually makes sense when stated.
I do not think the guns had as much to do about violence as it did paranoia. I like the phrasing of them being strategically placed. It tells me this guy was expecting things to jump off at any moment and he wanted to be prepared no matter where he was in his home. I am going to guess that upon investigation that this guy works for someone much bigger than we would expect. Your typical dealer wont have a money counting machine and guns placed throughout his home. This smells fishy.
Or he’s a cautious law abiding citizen, I have guns “strategically placed” in my home!!
As do I. But do you have prescription pills and 70 plus pot plants kicking around too? I think you missed my point.
what people are missing about the perscription pill part is that what he had in his possesion are things that are given to people to help STOP doing other perscriptions (ie OXYCOTIN) or other hard drugs such as Heroin. Methadone and Suboxone are given to help kick the dependence of opiate based drugs. The other two listed medications that he was found to have in his possesion are for anxiety. Admittedly the mixture of the two different kinds of medication can prove to be fatal but often times they are prescribed together with proper dosing by a professional. The lack of professional and affordable medical care that we have in this state is half the reason that we have the drug problem that we have here today. Simply stated, the people that are actually out there working cant afford the proper health care that they need and because of that they have to find ways to self-medicate.
Maybe if we had more GOOD paying jobs that provided GOOD health insurance we wouldn’t have the highest rates of persription drug abuse in the country.
This is coming from somebody that is married to someone who is trying to kick this kind of addition herself. Unfortunately with little help from the medical community.
Hold the phone, I thought pot was harmless. Say what, have I been lied to from the left? Dude, bro, whatzzzzzzup with dat? Man, Im gonna go catch a wave and throw my back out so I can get me some KGB. Like, pot is harmess, really dude.
Maine – Open for (Drug) Business…
Needs life in Prison
Keystone cops, or keystone judicial system.
Take your pick.
Maybe he has glaucoma?
I love the descriptions of the firearms found. If there ever comes a time that a le has a reason to search my home and they print I have automatic weapons nobody will get that I actually have machine guns. Does nobody fact check these stories. ATTN BDN if you wish I would be happy to help you with any firearm reporting. I can not only help you use the correct words but the correct names as well.
To the people who are going to try and use this whole thing as a reason as to why Pot should not be legal I would say do a little more research into what the over all drug abuse statistics are in other countries. Once you have completed said research try asking yourself this, “If the USA instead of spending MILLIONS on fighting the use of Pot and instead just regulated it and made it so that you didn’t have to go and buy it from a “drug dealer” and were able to obtain it legally so that you weren’t exposed to the other drugs. Would we still have the problem with drugs as a whole like we do today?”