Linda Williams is a professor at Bates College.
By Mark LaFlamme
Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Three months after Bates College professor Linda Williams was accused in a cocaine trafficking conspiracy, the 50-year-old is expected to admit to the charges in federal court.

In April, Williams was charged with two counts of distributing cocaine and a charge of conspiracy to distribute the drug in Lewiston and Augusta. Three other men were charged as a result of the same investigation.

Williams is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Portland Monday to accept an arrangement that could land her in a federal prison.

“We’ve got the plea agreement all worked out,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Toof.

A tenured assistant music professor, Williams could have faced 60 years in prison – 20 years on each count – if she had gone to trial. Toof declined to discuss details about the plea arrangement prior to the hearing.

Williams has been on paid leave from Bates College since she was charged. A college spokesman said the leave could extend into the fall, depending on the outcome of the case.

Drug agents say Williams was part of a Jamaican cocaine trafficking network that spreads along the entire East Coast of the United States.

“It’s a conspiracy that spans from Florida, North Carolina, Massachusetts and Maine,” said Maine Drug Enforcement Agency supervisor Gerry Baril. “There are cells in Miami, in Charleston, in Boston and in Lewiston.”

Investigators say at some point, Williams befriended three Jamaican men who are part of the cocaine network. Since June of 2002, Williams let two of the men live in her house, cook crack cocaine and use the Bardwell Street home as a “safe place,” Baril said.

Police said Williams also helped the men by keeping drugs at her house, conducting drug deals while they were away and allowing people to use her car for cocaine runs.

Investigators said they sent informants to Williams’ home wearing body wires to record drug transactions there. Police said that twice, the professor sold the informant crack after producing the drug from under a kitchen counter.

The night of April 11, police and drug agents raided Williams’ house after learning she was about to conduct a $1,000 cocaine deal with one of three informants investigators had been using in the case, according to court documents.

When Williams was arrested, agents also charged 41-year-old Dennis Nimbhart, who also goes by the names Godfrey Brooks and Paul Brown. Police said Nimbhart is one of the Jamaican men Williams had been helping in the cocaine conspiracy.

Agents also arrested 39-year-old Easton “Jamaican Bill” Wilson and Roderick Allen, the two men police say occasionally lived with Williams.

Those three men remain in federal custody on cocaine trafficking charges.

Investigators described the arrests as a significant move against a Jamaican cocaine syndicate at work in Lewiston and other parts of the country. Police said the leaders of the network would look for drug addicts in the cities where they settled.

“They would recruit local cocaine and crack addicts in these communities to act as mules for the organization,” Baril said.

Those people would fly to Jamaica where they would swallow up to a pound of cocaine in balloons or other packaging. Once back in the United States, they would excrete the drugs and turn it over to operators of the drug operation, Baril said.

In Lewiston, most of the cocaine would be cooked into crack, to serve the demand for that drug on the streets.

Police said Williams did not act as a mule for the drug network but served as more of a facilitator for the dealers. In addition to prison time, Williams could face up to a million dollars in fines.

When she was arrested, Williams had finished teaching for the year and was preparing to take a trip to South Africa. There, she was planning to do research for a book about black, female musicians, according to friends.

Instead, Williams was ordered to remain in this country after turning over $25,000 bail to free herself from a federal prison pod in Portland.

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