AUGUSTA — A city man arrested in August when police executed a federal warrant on another person pleaded guilty Thursday to three counts of unlawful drug trafficking.
William A. McDaniel Jr., 30, was sentenced to an initial 18 months in prison and the remainder of the seven-year term was suspended while he serves three years on probation.
Justice Michaela Murphy told him, “While you’re on probation, you have five and a half years of prison time hanging over your head.”
McDaniel said he understood that. He was represented by attorney Kevin Sullivan.
Police went to McDaniel’s home Aug. 28 after getting a tip that Denton Worrell, now 20, known as “Lil D,” of Rochester, New York, was there. A federal warrant had been issued for Worrell’s arrest after he was indicted on a charge of conspiracy to distribute with intent to distribute heroin and cocaine base. Fifteen people in all face federal conspiracy charges in that case; McDaniel is not one of them.
Worrell’s federal charge is pending and he is asking a federal judge to allow him out on bail, according to records in U.S. District Court in Maine.
At McDaniel’s hearing Thursday at the Capital Judicial Center, the prosecutor, Assistant Attorney General Katie Sibley, said agents went to McDaniel’s residence after getting a tip that Worrell was there.
McDaniel came out after police called him on the phone, and Worrell later surrendered after talking to police through a second-floor window, according to an affidavit filed in the case by Maine Drug Enforcement Agency officer Todd Chilton.
Sibley said McDaniel told police at the time he and Worrell had been selling drugs from that residence.
She also said agents found individual bags of drugs — 41 of heroin, 65 of crack cocaine and 16 of cocaine powder — during a search of McDaniel’s apartment.
McDaniel was indicted last month on charges of aggravated trafficking in drugs, and those charges were dismissed Thursday in exchange for the pleas to the other charges.
Conditions of probation prohibit McDaniel from use and possession of illegal drugs, alcohol and marijuana.
Betty Adams — 621-5631
Twitter: @betadams
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