WOODLAND, Maine — A local man will spend the next decade behind bars for selling synthetic bath salts after MDEA agents found him with more than $300,000 worth of the hallucinogenic drug during a 2014 raid at his home, Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman Stephen McCausland said Nov. 4, 2015.
Lance Ellison, 45, of Woodland was a major dealer of bath salts that were sold in Aroostook County, McCausland said.
Ellison and his wife, Kathryn, were arrested on Feb. 7, 2014, and charged with aggravated trafficking in Schedule W drugs after bath salts, valued at $308,000, were found at their home, Maine Drug Enforcement Agency Cmdr. Peter Arno said at the time of their arrest.
“These drugs, which had a street value of over $300,000, along with over $28,000 in cash and two firearms were seized from Ellison’s home in connection with his arrest,” McCausland said in a Wednesday press release.
The search warrant stemmed from an investigation into the distribution of bath salts in central Aroostook County, according to Arno. The case against Kathryn Ellison was dismissed, he said Wednesday.
In addition to the bath salts, police also found a shotgun, a loaded 9mm handgun, numerous laptop computers, cellphones and the prescription drugs Suboxone and Fentanyl.
The seizure of the drugs highlights the high quantities of bath salts that continue to dominate the drug market in rural northern Maine.
Ellison has a prior conviction for trafficking heroin in 2003, Arno said.
He pleaded guilty on Wednesday in Aroostook County Superior Court in Houlton to aggravated trafficking in scheduled drugs and possession of a firearm by a felon. He was sentenced to serve 10 years in prison and ordered to forfeit the $28,870 seized from his home.
“It is difficult to measure the impact caused by Ellison’s actions; difficult to quantify the number of people who became addicted; to measure the suffering families are still enduring as the result of an addiction; difficult to measure the crime that was committed against innocent bystanders as the result of people trying to support their habits; and difficult to measure the long-term impact that the distribution of these drugs will have on Aroostook County,” MDEA Director Roy McKinney and Aroostook County Sheriff Darrell Crandall said jointly in the press release. “The 10-year sentence will send a strong message to those who continue to traffic this drug or who may contemplate doing so in the future.”
The Aroostook County Sheriff’s Office, Maine Department of Corrections probation and parole division and the Presque Isle Police Department assisted in the investigation and raid of the Ellison home.
