A Corinna man was sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court in Bangor to 11 years in prison and five years of supervised release for conspiring to distribute and possess oxycodone and cocaine with the intent to distribute.

Roger Belanger, 59, of Corinna, along with his daughter Kelli Mujo, 31, of Harmony and Wellington and Central Falls, Rhode Island, were convicted of conspiring to distribute and possess controlled substances with the intent to distribute and maintaining drug-involved premises last year. The two were part of a group of 10 convicted in a two-county drug trafficking sting in 2015. Belanger was convicted following a jury trial on Aug. 19, 2016.

From 2002 to 2014 the pair ran a cocaine and oxycodone distribution conspiracy that stretched from Rhode Island to the Dexter area.

According to a news release from Acting U.S. Attorney Richard W. Murphy, Belanger was “central to the organization of the conspiracy and was directly involved in obtaining over 22 kilograms of cocaine and thousands of oxycodone pills in Rhode Island and arranging their transportation to Maine where it was distributed in Dexter and the surrounding communities.”

The case was investigated by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency, with assistance from the Dexter Police Department and the Penobscot County and Somerset County sheriff’s offices.

Belanger was among 10 people from Somerset and Penobscot counties arrested in April 2015 on sealed indictments in what was the breakup of “a major drug conspiracy,” Dexter police Chief Kevin Wintle said at the time.

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The eight others arrested in the sting pleaded guilty to similar charges in 2016.

Four of those arrested later pleaded guilty in July 2016. Mark Tasker, 49, of Dexter; Greg Tasker, 28, of Stetson; Eugene Moulton, 57, of Harmony; and Antoinette Perreault, 48, of Harmony, pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to distribute oxycodone and cocaine, as well as possession of the two drugs with the intent to distribute.

In January 2016, four others pleaded guilty in the case: John Williams, 43, of Stetson; Cynthia Williams, 42, of Stetson; Whitney Chadbourne, 22, of Harmony; and Corey Pomerleau, 24, of Harmony.

The 10 originally faced the possibility of 10 years to life in prison, a $10,000,000 fine, and five years to life on supervised release on the conspiracy charge and up to 20 years, a $500,000 fine, and three years of supervised release on the premises charge, the U.S. attorney’s office said when they were convicted.


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