BANGOR, Maine — Todd Robertson is the last of his kind.
The 30-year-old restaurant worker is not the last person to be charged with drug trafficking in Penobscot County but he is the final defendant to graduate from its drug court.
The Penobscot County Drug Court was shuttered by the judiciary on July 1 when it decided to shift funding from the program based in Bangor to the Co-occurring Disorders Court in Kennebec County.
Robertson completed the program in Ellsworth through the Hancock County Drug Court.
The Bangor resident attended his last court session Nov. 14 at the Penobscot Judicial Center, where his felony drug trafficking charge was dismissed and he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor drug trafficking charge. Superior Court Justice William Anderson sentenced Robertson to 11 months in prison, suspended, and a year of probation. The judge also imposed the mandatory $400 fine.
Roberton was arrested for the first and only time Feb. 16, 2011, after selling oxycodone to an undercover officer with Maine Drug Enforcement Agency, according to a previously published report.
“I was only looking at nine months,” Robertson said Nov. 14 during a small celebration in his honor in the courthouse in Bangor. “That would have been an easy out. I knew drug court could help me. I knew I wouldn’t learn anything by just going to jail. And, I wanted to change my life.”
Robertson said his addiction to prescription painkillers began slowing in 2001 when he was 19. It spiralled out of control seven years later.
“When my brother was killed in Afghanistan, my disease took a hold of me and went out of control,” he said. “I began selling Percocet in order to support my habit.”
Sgt. Nicholas Robertson, 27, of Holden was wounded April 2, 2008, while on a combat mission in the Zahn Khan District of Afghanistan and died as a result of his injuries the next day, at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Landstuhl, Germany. An Airborne Ranger assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg, Nicholas Robertson was serving his second deployment to Afghanistan as a translator. His funeral April 11, 2008, in Brewer drew more than 100 people and was covered by the local media.
The last graduate of the Penobscot County Drug Court credited Wellspring Inc., a residential addiction treatment program in Bangor, with helping him stay off drugs for more than a year.
“The people there gave me a lot of the tools I needed to stay sober,” Robertson said. “There was counseling that helped, too.”
Todd Robertson said on the day of his graduation from drug court that his parents, David and Nancy Robinson, of Venice, Fla., were “absolutely thrilled” with the change he has made in this life even though they were unable to attend the graduation.
“They finally feel like they have their son back since my brother’s death, so they’re pretty happy,” he said.
Michael Roberts, deputy district attorney for Penobscot County, prosecuted Robertson and met with him weekly until the drug court in Bangor shut down. The prosecutor said the Penobscot County defendants who qualify for drug court still can participate in the program if they have transportation so they can get to Ellsworth.
“We’re trying to deal with people who would have qualified for drug court in Bangor through the normal probation process,” he said.
The Penobscot County Drug Court was the only one in the state to end, according to a previously published report. The state’s five other drug court programs will continue, as will the year-old Family Drug Court in Bangor. The other adult drug courts serve Cumberland, York, Androscoggin and Washington counties in addition to Hancock.
Most of the funding for the drug court program comes from the office of substance abuse, a division of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services. The program was implemented a decade ago with money from the Fund for a Healthy Maine, which came from the state’s share of a settlement with the tobacco industry, Mary Ann Lynch, spokeswoman for the court system, said in September.
Since the funding source for drug courts shifted to the General Fund a few years ago, the amount of money available has been reduced. The drug court program for juveniles was eliminated a few years ago.
Nearly $85,000 for substance abuse treatment and about $33,600 to cover the salary of a case manager previously allocated to the drug court in Bangor is now being used by the Co-occurring Disorders Court in Augusta, which was previously funded with federal grant money that was no longer available.
Efforts to fund a replacement program in Bangor failed earlier this year in the Legislature.
Robertson said that while he was happy to graduate from drug court, he also was saddened to be the last person to complete the program in Bangor.
“It’s sad really because I know there will be nobody else who will get the help that I received,” he said.
Congratulations Todd Robertson. You now have your rights back and your responsibilities back. Cherish and respect them and those of all others.
Congratulations. Don’t take your second chance lightly, make your parents proud.
i too completed the program and i can say it was easy to do good and stay clean in the program because you have a so called “safety net”…the real test is when you are out on your own.
So true. I have had a grandson go through the program, so far so good. I have known quite a few that have gone through only to fail by returning to their old friends and ways.
Drug court works. It works in that it gives people the tools they need to help them beat their addictions. They themselves have to supply the most important ingredient. They have to learn to love themselves enought to beat back the chemical addictions in their brain. Many have been addicted for so long and from such an early age that they have no idea what normal feels like. Consequently they often don’t recognize it when they reach it.
There is no guarentees in ‘Drug Court’. It is a tool that can be used or misued.
Agreed, going through treatment is the easy part — the ready-made safety net and pretty much drug free surroundings. The safety net is out here too, but it takes action to get into it. Meeting makers make it, partner.
You got that right!
It is a terrible shame that the drug court got shut down, and for financial reasons, too. Money spent in substance abuse treatment and rehab has a massive return on investment and the folks at Wellspring do truly amazing work. Hopefully that gap can get filled somehow so that others in the Bangor area will be able to get the treatment that they need.
” Co-occurring Disorders Court” How does a judge even order that with a straight face? Sounds like the last time I went to Wendys, got the wrong food and the manager nearly had a breakdown over it. AAARRRGGGHHH!!!
Great to hear that Todd got the idea, though. He seems to be talking the right talk and serious about his recovery. It works if ya work it.
I wish all who have been affected by addiction success and hope this program returns.One of my good friends in school died from bad choices and left behind a two year old as well as many people who loved him..How that can happen,I just don’t know,but life is not even.
Maybe some past grads can step up an help these offenders outside of the formal court proceedings. People helping people,
“Graduates”. As if being sober is an achievement that requires scholarly effort.
Takes more effort than you’ll ever understand, apparently, regardless of the title.
It takes great effort. Maybe you have to live it to truly understand. Getting clean and sober takes a huge amount of work few “earth people” know about.
It is unconscionable that this program has been eliminated from budgeting. Do those responsible for funding think that we have less of a drug problem now as compared to a few years ago? Look at any of the court reports and you will see that generally speaking, over 50% of those charged are facing some type of drug related offenses. We need more preventative measures and more programs to help those who are already addicted.
When will people wake up and realize that addiction to opiates is a disease. I say this because one person could take opiates for a month and not have any withdrawal while another person could take opiates for three days and have terrible withdrawal. It’s the withdrawal that causes the problem. Because it is such an awful experience people do not want to go through it and they will do anything to avoid it, such as stealing, robbing pharmacies, etc.
You may be susceptible to addiction and not even know it. If you are ever prescribed opiates, you will find out real quick when your prescription runs out. I wouldn’t wish it upon anybody, having gone through it myself but if more people understood the hell that addicts go through during withdrawal we would see a lot more compassion from the public.
Addiction is not a disease. Anyone who suggests otherwise is an enabler.