AUGUSTA — A city man who dropped a 46-gram, baseball-sized bag of cocaine as he fled from an Augusta police officer after a traffic stop June 11, pleaded guilty Wednesday at the Capital Judicial Center to aggravated drug trafficking.

Donald E. Bowden, 35, who is serving 40 months in prison because he violated his probation on prior trafficking convictions, is scheduled to be sentenced at a hearing in early February.

He had received a series of consecutive sentences for the 2002 convictions and was still on probation from that case when he ran away last June from the Augusta police officer who stopped Bowden’s vehicle. That probation was revoked and on Sept. 23, Bowden was ordered to serve the 40-month portion of the sentence that had been suspended.

On Wednesday, after Bowden pleaded guilty to the new trafficking charge, his attorney Andrew Dawson, requested a sentencing be scheduled within a month, saying he would meet with Bowden prior to that date at the Maine Correctional Center in Windham.

The prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Kate Marshall, told Justice Robert Mullen on Wednesday that she anticipated asking for Bowden to serve an additional four years behind bars for the June incident.

Mullen told Bowden that the aggravated trafficking charge carries a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison. Bowden said he understood that.

Mullen scheduled the sentencing hearing for Feb. 3, saying the time could be determined later.

Betty Adams — 621-5631

badams@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @betadams

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