A New York City man is likely to be deported to Trinidad after pleading guilty Thursday to charges he trafficked in illegal drugs and threatened to have an elderly Waterville woman and her son killed.

Devon Duncan Photo courtesy of the Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office

Devon Duncan, 33, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to traffic in drugs, two counts of terrorizing, and two felony counts of trafficking in drugs — cocaine in one count and fentanyl powder in the other.

He was sentenced to three years in prison as part of a plea agreement Thursday. He could have faced up to 10 years in prison on the felony drug trafficking charges.

But his attorney and Superior Court Justice Roland Cole said there are likely to be consequences beyond that sentence for Duncan, a native of Trinidad where he lived until he was 5 years old.

He is not a United States citizen nor has he been granted asylum, his attorney, Lisa Whittier, said in court Thursday. She said he was already facing deportation due to legal issues in New York but the process had been paused. She said his new convictions for what he pleaded guilty to Thursday are likely to change his status and it is “very likely he’s going to be deported based on these convictions.”

Whittier said there are concerns Duncan could be tortured or homeless if returned to Trinidad.

“It’s very likely this is going to cause a change in status, and you can and probably will be deported, do you understand that?” Cole asked Duncan, who answered yes. “Obviously there are very dire consequences of these convictions, beyond sentencing.”

On Aug. 23, 2018, Duncan, after he had been arrested on a fugitive from justice warrant and taken to Kennebec County jail, made what Assistant District Attorney Christopher Coleman said were several incriminating phone calls to a Waterville man whom he instructed to keep selling drugs to make money for his defense. Coleman said Duncan threatened the man, if he did not comply with his wishes, to have him and his mother, with whom he lived, killed. Coleman said Duncan was “threatening the heat would come up from New York.” Those calls were the basis of the terrorizing charges and the conspiracy to traffic in drugs charge.

The charges of unlawful trafficking in drugs were tied to a Jan. 14 incident in which an informant working with police set up a drug buy at McDonald’s in Waterville. Coleman said evidence would show, if the case had gone to trial, Duncan was with a woman who went to the back of the McDonald’s, and removed cocaine and fentanyl from her body to allegedly sell to the informant.

Whittier sought to alter the plea agreement to allow Duncan to plead no contest instead of guilty, which would have had the same effect, in his Maine sentence, as a guilty plea. But Coleman said the state would insist on guilty pleas in part because “the defendant stands accused of terrorizing an elderly woman and her son” for the purpose of trying to sell drugs.