News Release from the Maine Department of Public Safety

NEWS RELEASE FROM THE MAINE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY from Spokesman Steve McCausland - 626-3811 office FOR MORE INFO -- MDEA SUPERVISOR GERRY BARIL - 557-0518

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The Maine Drug Enforcement Agency says five people were arrested Thursday afternoon in Bethel and Newry on charges of selling OxyContin.

At 11 A.M. Thursday, MDEA agents and officers of the Bethel Police Department executed an arrest and search warrant at 237 West Bethel Rd (US Route 2) in Bethel, where BRADY WILSON (22) was living in the garage apartment attached to his parent’s house. A second team of MDEA agents, with Bethel and State Police served another search warrant at 770 Bear River Rd. (Rt. 26) in Newry, where NICOLE TERRY (27) and KRYSTAL DILL (22) reside together in an apartment above a three-bay garage .

In Bethel, the officers found a small marijuana growing room with 24 budding marijuana plants under growing lights. In the first floor bedroom, officers found a pill crusher and several used plastic straws commonly used for “snorting” the ground up tablets. Seven Zoloft® tablets in a plastic baggy and one Suboxone® tablet inside the pill crusher were seized. An assortment of cultivation equipment including four stripped marijuana stalks, marijuana pipes and bongs and residual amounts of marijuana were also seized. BRADY WILSON, also known as GUMP, was charged with two counts of Class B Trafficking in OxyContin® and transported to the Oxford County Jail in South Paris where he was booked and then released on $2500 bail. A laptop computer, believed to have been stolen from an area school was also found in Wilson's bedroom. Additional charges are likely to be lodged against Wilson later. Wilson's arrest followed two recent sales of OxyContin tablets in a police undercover operation .

In Newry, officers seized a variety of OxyContin®, Percocet® and Ecstasy tablets, along with $700. Officers also found two handguns. NICOLE “NIKKI” TERRY who is on probation in Florida for prior drug offenses, was charged with two counts of Class A Aggravated Trafficking in OxyContin® and transported to the Oxford County Jail in South Paris. A few hours later, Terry's roommate, KRYSTAL DILL, was arrested at the Bethel Police Department and charged with Class A Aggravated Trafficking in OxyContin®, and also booked at the county jail. Based upon the evidence uncovered at the home, drug agents say TERRY and DILL have been importing and distributing between $10,000 and $15,000 worth of prescription pills in Oxford County monthly .

When the officers arrived at the Newry address, they interrupted a drug sale underway in the driveway, between TERRY and MEGAN MANSON (19) of South Paris. After taking the two women into custody, officers discovered that Manson's boyfriend, KEVIN LITCHFIELD (21) of Oxford, was hiding inside the trunk of Manson's Subaru. He had accompanied Manson to Newry in hopes of buying OxyContin. Both MANSON and LITCHFIELD were also charged with Class B Trafficking in OxyContin and they also were Oxford Jail.

The arrests were spear-headed by separate investigations by Bethel and Oxford Police in response to citizen complaints of increased abuse of prescription pills furnished by a man known locally as “GUMP”.