AUGUSTA — A Troy, New York, man was sentenced Monday to 10 years in prison for bringing illegal drugs to Maine to sell.

Christopher Wilson, 44, was found guilty of aggravated trafficking in cocaine base and felony possession of heroin following a non-jury trial at the Capital Judicial Center on May 22.

Judge Valerie Stanfill, who conducted the half-day trial, imposed the sentence during a hearing at the same courthouse.

The prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Tyler LeClair, argued for an 18-year sentence for Wilson, citing Wilson’s his six prior felony drug convictions in New York.

LeClair said Wilson’s convictions span two decades, “and there’s no real break between the defendant’s criminal episodes.” LeClair said Wilson was released from his previous sentence July 20, 2016, and committed the new drug offenses in Maine on Oct. 22, 2016.

Wilson’s attorney, Darrick Banda, said it should be much lower, and argued that Wilson should spend four to six years behind bars followed by probation.

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Wilson and a co-defendent, Allan T. Nunnally, were arrested and brought to Kennebec County jail after police stopped them at the Concord Coach Lines bus station on Industrial Drive at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 22, 2016.

According to an affidavit by Detective Matthew Estes of the Augusta Police Department, police seized more than 10 grams of heroin and more than six grams of crack cocaine from Wilson’s luggage. “The two substances were found inside a bag of rice,” Estes wrote.

In court on Monday, Wilson said, “It wasn’t mine.”

He told the judge he came to Maine to see if he wanted to relocate here. “I didn’t come up here to traffic nothing,” Wilson said.

Wilson told the judge he didn’t understand why he was facing an 18-year sentence when he had been offered a lesser sentence in a deal.

“I got six kids,” he said. “I’m not going to cop out to something I didn’t do.”

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Police received a tip via the Lewiston Police Department that the two men, traveling from Albany, New York, would be getting off a Greyhound bus at the depot that night.

Wilson was charged with two counts of aggravated trafficking because of a prior drug trafficking conviction in New York.

Stanfill said she found that Wilson came to Maine to sell heroin and cocaine and that the trip was premeditated and planned and required many hours of travel.

In imposing the 10-year term, she said, “I also do not find any reason to suspend any portion of that sentence,” citing Wilson’s prior failures on probation and parole.

Nunnally, 29, who has addresses in Fairfield and Waterville, was sentenced last month to six months in jail and fined $400 for unlawful possession of cocaine in connection with the bus stop incident.

Wilson was also fined $800.

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Banda told the judge that Wilson was planning to appeal.

Betty Adams — 621-5631

badams@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @betadams


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