PORTLAND, Maine — Judge George Z. Singal sentenced two New Hampshire men Thursday in U.S. District Court in Portland for their involvement in a heroin distribution conspiracy, U.S. Attorney Thomas E. Delahanty II said in a news release.
Mitch Merritt, 30, of Rochester, New Hampshire, was sentenced to 151 months and five years of supervised release.
Scott Woodman, 29, of Farmington, New Hampshire, was sentenced to 65 months in prison and three years of supervised release.
Both men pleaded guilty to the offence on May 7, 2013.
According to court records, from 2011 until February 2013, Merritt led a group of people who obtained kilograms of heroin in Lawrence, Massachusetts, that was distributed to customers in Maine and New Hampshire by Merritt, Woodman and others.
Numerous home burglaries and shoplifting crimes were committed by customers to pay for that heroin, Delahanty noted.
The convictions were the result of an investigation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; Maine Drug Enforcement Agency; New Hampshire State Police; Maine State Police; York County Sheriff’s Office; and police department in Rochester, New Hampshire; and the effort of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces, a partnership between federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.
The principal mission of the task forces program is to identify, disrupt and dismantle the most serious drug-trafficking, weapons-trafficking and money-laundering organizations as well as those primarily responsible for the nation’s illegal drug supply.