BANGOR, Maine — A Greenbush man who told investigators he smuggled bath salts from Texas to Maine hidden in stuffed animals he took with him on commercial air flights was sentenced Friday at the Penobscot Judicial Center to 10 years in prison with all but four years suspended for his role in a drug distribution ring.
Leonard D. Wells, 55, also was sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to forfeit $2,555 in cash and his $50,000 interest in the Hermon house where he and three others were arrested in January 2013 divvying more than 8 pounds of bath salts with a street value of $1 million. He also was ordered to pay a $400 fine.
Wells was sentenced after he pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful trafficking in synthetic hallucinogenic drugs, a Class B crime. In unrelated cases, he also pleaded guilty to one count each of failure to appear, a Class C crime, and theft by unauthorized taking, a Class D crime. Wells was ordered to pay $1,500 in restitution in connection with the theft conviction.
He faced up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $20,000 on the drug trafficking charges.
Arthur Coy, Wells’ Texas supplier, pleaded guilty Thursday in the same courtroom 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.
Coy, 51, of Houston was sentenced to 20 years in prison with all but six suspended, followed by four years of probation. He was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine, according to a previously published report.
In plea agreements with Assistant Attorney General Patrick Larson, who prosecuted the case, a number of other charges filed against both men were dismissed.
Wells, who met Coy on the Internet, began purchasing bath salts from the Texas man in late 2011 or early 2012, Wells’ attorney, Jeffrey Silverstein of Bangor, told Superior Court Justice William Anderson at Friday’s sentencing.
“Mr. Wells was down on his financial luck when he got involved with selling bath salts,” Silverstein said. “He got involved when bath salts was legal, back when the whole bath salts craze started.”
He continued selling the drug after it was made illegal, according to Larson.
The two people arrested with Wells and Coy pleaded guilty and were sentenced last year.
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.