PORTLAND, Maine — A 60-year-old Warren woman who federal investigators say has illegally received large packages of prescription painkillers from Florida twice a week for two years has agreed to plead guilty.
Sentencing for Niraja Beram is scheduled for Aug. 28 in U.S. District Court in Portland before Judge Nancy Torresen. The plea agreement between Beram and the U.S. Attorney’s Office calls for a prison term of no more than 24 months.
A new criminal complaint charging Beram with intent to distribute oxycodone was filed May 22, the same day that the defendant waived her right to have a grand jury consider the case and possibly issue an indictment.
Beram was originally charged Jan. 27 with importing oxycodone with the intent to distribute. The maximum penalty under the original charge was 20 years. The lower sentence was agreed to because she has accepted responsibility for the offense, according to the plea agreement filed in court.
She remains free on bail.
An affidavit filed by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in order to get a search warrant on an U.S. Postal Service express mail package being delivered Jan. 25 to Beram stated that an unnamed cooperating informant in Florida reported that he or she had been sending between 500 and 1,000 pills to Beram through the mail twice a week for about two years.
Beram would pay $20 per pill either half before the delivery or in full after she received the packages the informant told authorities, according to the affidavit.
U.S. Postal Service Inspector Jeffrey Taylor states in that affidavit that at least 50 Express Mail packages were mailed to Beram from Melbourne, Fla., between June 2010 and October 2011. The inspector said that all the names on the return address of the packages turned out to be fictitious. He stated in the affidavit that Melbourne has been a source of illegal drugs to Maine.
An affidavit filed in the court by DEA Special Agent Steven Galbadis reported that agents opened the last package before it got to Beram and found 257 30-milligram oxycodone pills, 30 8-milligram hydromorphone (Dilaudid) pills and 27 4-milligram hydromorphone pills.
Two agents were waiting for Beram when she went to pick up the package Jan. 26 at Global Packing Shipping in Camden.
Beram claimed she had not been selling the pills but placed them in a mailbox on her property and someone would pick them up. She told the agents she was paid $400 to $600 each time.
Beram is represented by attorneys Jeffrey Hamm, John Burke and Timothy Zerillo of Portland. Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Conley is prosecuting the case.
Let me guess: 24 months with all but 10 minutes (time served) dismissed. Small wonder pill pushing is such a lucrative job up here.
jus legalize natures pain killer marijuana that is
We need to be attuned to others doing it around us and give the authorities a helping hand to eliminate the problem.
You mean spy on your neighbors and report them? Sounds like 3rd Reich technique. The Talliban does that too. Let’s just report anyone we suspect of doing anything we don’t like.
Sounds like what us citizens were told to do after 9/11 under the unPatriot Act.
3rd Reich? Yes, right here at home. Sadly.
Be sure to hold onto that thought when one of your drug dealing neighbors customers mistakenly breaks into your house in the middle of the night to steal the drugs they think your holding.
You have drug dealing neighbors? How do you know? You buying from ’em? So, if you THINK your neighbor is a dealer, then you should call the sheriff? I think spying on eachother is such a gooooood idea, yessah. That will certainly stop some loser from breaking into your house. Of course, it could be the sheriff comming for you because YOUR neighbor called in on YOU.
Being aware of one’s surroundings is not spying. You’ve got be in some sort of denial to want citizens to not report illegal activities. Commit a crime in my neighborhood and I’m calling the police. I work every day for what I have and no low life is taking it with a struggle.
$10,000-$20,000 a week income for each person, maybe $20,000-$40,000 depending on 500 or 1000 pills and what type. And people wonder why so many people sell drugs.
She was receiving over 300 illegal pills per package, times the 50 packages within a four month period in 2011, totalling 15,000 pills. Her $20 thousand weekly income which was tax free, should be the fine….24 months incarceration is a tiny price to pay for that income, when the original sentence was 20 years. The punishment is an insult to the hard working struggling taxpayers of our state.
Thank you for your simple, yet effective solution mainemcq6. Involved parents, automatically are attuned to protect their family from becoming the next victim of illegal drug use, leading to dealing to feed your addiction, ending in incarceration or death.
I’m wondering if she might have provided some evidence against whoever was using her as a mail drop.