AUGUSTA — A New Yorker pleaded guilty Friday to aggravated trafficking in heroin after having used a woman’s Augusta home as a base for his operations.

Reuben W. Givens, 43, of Bronx, New York, was scheduled for jury selection but instead opted to take a plea deal as potential jurors assembled in a nearby room at the Capital Judicial Center.

He was sentenced to four years in prison for the offense, which occurred Aug. 12, 2016, and the $400 fine was suspended.

In exchange for the plea, additional charges of aggravated trafficking in heroin and aggravated trafficking in cocaine base, all allegedly occurring on the same date in Augusta, were dismissed.

The charges were aggravated because of Givens’ history of drug-related felonies and the weight of the drugs seized.

Givens also agreed to the criminal forfeiture of $279, which was found on Amy L. Perkins, as well as $1,373 in cash seized from him when he was arrested Aug. 12, 2016, in Perkins’ Riverside Drive residence.

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An affidavit by Maine Drug Enforcement Agency officer Kelly Hooper says police executed a search warrant at Perkins’ home. When they broke into a locked second-floor bedroom, they saw a man walking away from the home.

The suspected was arrested and later identified as Givens.

Agents also found a blue zippered pouch containing drugs on the roof of the house.

In that raid, police seized 27 grams of cocaine, 19.1 grams of crack cocaine and 66.7 grams of heroin, as well as the cash and drug paraphernalia.

Givens told police another man had been in the bedroom packaging heroin for sale, some of which Givens bought, and left a bag of drugs in the dresser drawer. Givens said he threw that out the window.

Givens, who also is known as Reuben Nelson, Kevin Redmond and Turbo, has been held in lieu of $75,000 cash bail and housed at the York County Correctional Facility in Alfred, according to court documents filed Nov, 16, 2016, by his then-defense attorney, who sought to have him released to an inpatient substance abuse treatment facility.

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The prosecutor, Assistant Attorney General Katie Sibley objected to the motion, which was not acted upon.

Hooper’s affidavit also says Givens was the subject of outstanding arrest warrants in Georgia and has been convicted of felony possession of heroin and cocaine, conspiracy to distribute cocaine, receiving stolen property and possession or transfer of a firearm by a felon.

At Friday’s hearing, Givens was represented by attorney Brad Grant.

Perkins, now 41, pleaded guilty in October 2016 in the same courthouse to unlawful trafficking in drugs that involved selling heroin to an undercover agent Aug. 8, 2016, from her home in Augusta.

At the hearing in which Perkins was ordered to serve an initial nine months and one day of a four-year prison sentence and two years’ probation, Sibley told the judge, “Ms. Perkins opened her house to an out-of-state trafficker and sold drugs for him.”

Betty Adams — 621-5631

badams@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @betadams


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