BANGOR, Maine — An Etna man who admitted to smuggling nearly 20,000 bags of heroin into Maine in late 2015 and early 2016 was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison on Tuesday in U.S. District Court.
Don Grace, 54, was arrested by agents with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and members of the Maine State Police in January in possession of 3,300 bags of heroin during a roadside stop of a car in which he was a passenger, according to the prosecution version of events to which he pleaded guilty.
Grace pleaded guilty in May to one count of conspiracy to distribute and possess with the intent to distribute 100 or more grams of heroin. One hundred grams of heroin is equal to a little more than 3½ ounces of the drug.
He told police after his arrest that he had made at least six trips out of state between August 2015 and January 2016 and brought back a total of 19,800 bags of heroin, the document said. Grace said he sold some of the drugs from his home in Etna and used some of them.
The bags were sold in bundles of 10, according to court documents. The bundles weighed about 0.5 gram each.
Confidential informants purchased the bundles for $160 or $16 per bag, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. That puts the street value of 19,800 bags of heroin at $316,800.
The sentencing on Tuesday was the fifth time in about 12 years that Grace has been ordered to serve time in federal prison.
Grace originally was sentenced on March 30, 2004, to 30 months in federal prison and six years of supervised release after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute cocaine. He was released in February 2005, according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons Inmate Locator.
He was sent back three times for violating his supervised release. Grace most recently was released from federal prison on Dec. 22, 2009.
In addition to prison time, Grace was sentenced Tuesday to eight years of supervised release. He faced between 10 years and life in prison and a fine of up to $8 million because of his record and the amount of drugs he admitted to smuggling into Maine.