A prosecutor said Linda Williams likely will get less than 10 years in prison.
LEWISTON – A former Bates College professor will be sentenced Monday for helping run a local drug-trafficking business that delivered crack cocaine throughout central Maine.
While a tenured music professor at the college, Williams pleaded guilty in January to one count of conspiracy to distribute the drug.
The charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. But Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Toof said it is likely that Williams will get less than 10 years because she doesn’t have a previous criminal record.
The sentencing hearing will take place in U.S. District Court in Portland. Six of Williams’ friends and former colleagues are expected to speak on her behalf, Toof said.
In addition to time in federal prison, she could face up to $1 million in fines.
Williams, 51, was initially charged with two counts of distributing cocaine and one count of conspiracy to distribute the drug after agents raided her home.
Investigators say Williams befriended three Jamaican men who were part of the local cocaine network.
Starting in June 2002, she let the men live in her house, cook crack cocaine on her stove and use her Bardwell Street home as a place to do business, investigators say. She kept the drugs at her house, conducted drug deals while the men were away and allowed people to use her car for cocaine runs.
This particular trafficking network spread along the entire East Coast of the United States, with other cells in Miami, Boston and Charleston, Va., investigators said.
Last spring, drug agents sent informants wearing body wires to Williams’ home to record drug transactions. Police raided her house on April 11, after learning she was about to conduct a $1,000 cocaine deal.
Two men involved in the drug ring, Godfrey Brooks and Stephen McMann, were convicted in January after a six-day trial.
Williams opted to plead guilty in hopes that it would result in less prison time. As part of the deal, federal prosecutors agreed to drop the two counts of distributing cocaine.
If Williams had been convicted at a trial on all three counts, she could have faced 60 years in prison.
When Williams was arrested, she had finished teaching for the year and was preparing to take a trip to South Africa to do research for a book about black female musicians.
The college immediately placed her on paid administrative leave. She stopped getting paychecks last August and officially resigned Oct. 14.
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