BANGOR, Maine — A Texas man was sentenced Thursday at the Penobscot Judicial Center to 20 years in prison with all but six suspended, followed by four years of probation for his role in a $1 million bath salts distribution ring.
In addition to prison time, Superior Court Justice William Anderson ordered Arthur Coy, 51, of Houston to pay a $10,000 fine, according to Assistant Attorney General Patrick Larson, who prosecuted the case.
Larson said that the 8 pounds of bath salts recovered in the case is the largest seizure of bath salts in Penobscot County.
Coy was sentenced after pleading guilty to one count of aggravated trafficking in synthetic hallucinogenic drugs. The charge was a Class A crime because the house in which he was dealing drugs was within 1,000 feet of a school. He faced up to 30 years in prison and a fine of up to $50,000.
He was arrested with three other people in mid-January 2013 while divvying up 8 pounds of bath salts at a house in Hermon owned by Leonard D. Wells Jr., 55, of Greenbush, according to a previously published report.
Coy had been held without bail since his arrest. That time will count toward his prison sentence.
Wells is scheduled to plead guilty to drug and other charges and be sentenced Friday.
Elizabeth Fuentes, 32, of Houston, Texas, Coy’s girlfriend, was sentenced in August 2013 to 2½ years in prison on a felony drug charge for her role in the drug ring, according to a previously published report. Stephen M. Warren, 30, of Ellsworth was sentenced in October to eight months in the Penobscot County Jail on a misdemeanor drug charge.
The quartet was discovered at Wells’ home by Penobscot County Sheriff’s deputies when they went to perform a bail check on Wells, Larson said last year. Wells was out on bail on a burglary charge, the drug prosecutor said.
Wells and his stepson Warren told deputies that no one else was at home, but after hearing noise coming from what they believed was a bedroom, the deputies went to investigate, Larson said.
“When they opened the door, the room was filled with a white, dusty haze,” Larson told a judge last year. “There were two people hiding behind a bed.”
In addition to Fuentes and Coy, deputies found a folding table covered with a white powder that was later proved to be bath salts, a rolling pin, plastic dishes, rubber gloves, plastic bags, four empty cans of foot powder and respirators, Larson said in 2013. He also said investigators had reviewed security tapes from a local discount store and identified Coy and Fuentes purchasing the items earlier in the day.