FAYETTE – Police seized 203 bags of heroin along with some cocaine Saturday night and arrested two people after searching an Oak Hill Road home.
Timothy Sounier, who attorneys say has a prior history of drug trafficking, was being held Monday on $30,000 cash bail or $300,000 surety at a Kennebec County jail.
Terry Berube of Augusta was also arrested after Kennebec and Somerset county deputies executed a search warrant at the home. Both are charged with trafficking in heroin, police said.
Sounier, 34, police said, lived in Fayette, but his temporary attorney, Stephen J. Bourget said Sounier said he had lived there about three or four months ago but currently lives in Whitefield.
Kennebec and Somerset counties’ District Attorney Evert Fowle said Sounier is charged with aggravated trafficking in heroin, conspiracy trafficking in heroin and falsifying physical evidence.
Fowle said Sounier set the room on fire in an attempt to conceal the heroin as deputies were searching the house. Law enforcement officers knew in advance that Sounier was going to do this and had fire extinguishers with them.
Sounier was in the master bedroom with the heroin, Fowle said. He had his hands concealed beneath a bed covering and allegedly used an accelerant to start the fire, he said.
One of the deputies had his clothes singed, Fowle said, but was fine.
“They came well prepared, if they had not been prepared,” Fowle said, it could have been a greater tragedy.
But Bourget said his client said in court Monday that police knocked over some candles when they entered the room, which started the fire.
Fowle said the heroin was worth about $6,000 to $7,000.
Somerset County Sheriff’s Lt. Carl Gottardi II and Kennebec Deputy Jeremy Damren were in charge of the operation, Fowle said.
Berube was charged with similar drug charges, Bourget said. Her bail was set at $3,000 cash. Bourget, who represented Sounier in an initial appearance in Augusta District Court Monday, said both Sounier and Berube said they were both visiting for day when police searched the home.
Bourget also said Sounier denied that the heroin was his. The owner of the house is in jail, Bourget said, and he rented it out and it was sublet again and again. He said there were at least five people at the home Saturday night when police searched it. The police are going to have a hard time pinning ownership of the heroin on Sounier, Bourget said.
Fowle said Sounier’s prior drug convictions go back to 1993, when he was convicted of trafficking hashish and cocaine among other charges. That time he was sentenced to eight years all but four years suspended. He got out of prison and was back in 1999 for nearly three years on more drug charges.
Sounier currently has pending felony drug charges in Massachusetts, Fowle said. Police there seized $40,000 from Sounier, Fowle said.
“We’ll be working closely with Massachusetts authorities,” Fowle said, on Sounier’s cases.
Fowle said he expects Sounier’s case to go to grand jury in July. He also said other charges are being considered.
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