AUGUSTA — Two New Yorkers are headed to prison for 30 months for drug trafficking from a hotel room in Augusta.

The Augusta man arrested in the same incident is already serving four years for those offenses and others.

Sammy Virella, 19, and Stephon Sullivan, 20, both of Manhattan, pleaded guilty Tuesday at the Capital Judicial Center to unlawful trafficking in heroin and unlawful trafficking in cocaine and they agreed to the criminal forfeiture of $3,677, the amount of cash seized when investigators raided a hotel room June 12 rented by co-defendant Travis Allen Moore, 42, of Augusta.

A month ago in the same courthouse, Moore pleaded guilty to charges of aggravated trafficking in heroin and aggravated trafficking in cocaine as well as two counts of violating conditions of release and he too agreed to the criminal forfeiture.

An affidavit by Maine Drug Enforcement Agency Officer Nathan Walker that was filed with the cases, says agents conducted a bail check of Moore, who was on bail on other charges, and who had rented a room at the Augusta Inn on Edison Drive. Walker said employees there indicated a number of people were coming and going from Moore’s room after staying only briefly.

They found Moore, Virella and Sullivan there as well as a total of 23.17 grams of crack cocaine and 42.55 grams of heroin, Walker wrote. The bulk of the cash was found in a backpack that had bus tickets with Virella’s name on them, and Sullivan had $400 on him.

Virella’s $800 in fines was suspended.

Sullivan was fined $400. Police at the time of the arrests said the two New Yorkers had been alternating between two Augusta motels to sell the drugs over the past month.

Two other people were sentenced separately for unrelated drug offenses on Tuesday as well.

Diondre Renel Cummings, 22, of Brooklyn, New York, pleaded guilty to a charge of unlawful trafficking in crack cocaine which resulted from a traffic stop in Gardiner on June 21 and was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

An affidavit by Maine Drug Enforcement Agency Officer Jonathan Richards said Cummings was a passenger in a vehicle stopped that day on Brunswick Avenue and a police K-9 indicated he had drugs in his crotch area. Cummings told police had come to Maine to see a girlfriend, “but was unsure of her name or location,” Richards wrote.

After a subsequent search of Cummings at the Gardiner Police Station found no drugs, police searched the cruiser in which Cummings had been taken to the station and located a plastic bag containing 15 small bags of crack cocaine where he had been sitting.

A criminal records checked showed that Cummings had been arrested on drug and weapons charges in New York in March 2017, Richards noted, but was paroled.

In a separate case, Philip R. Theriault, 43, of Augusta, pleaded guilty to a charge of unlawful trafficking of heroin that occurred Nov. 9, 2016, in Augusta. Theriault had a prior drug trafficking conviction in Jan. 2010 in Kennebec County.

According to an affidavit by Maine Drug Enforcement Agency Officer Nathan Walker, a confidential informant called Theriault and arranged to make a controlled buy of half a gram of heroin for $100 at Theriault’s Bond Street apartment that day.

Theriault was sentenced to serve an initial two years of a six-year prison term, with the remainder suspended while he serves three years’ probation. He was also fined $400.

A second charge of aggravated trafficking in scheduled drugs from the same date and place was dismissed.

Betty Adams — 621-5631

badams@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @betadams

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