AUBURN – A man described by police as the head of a crime family that moves drugs between Lewiston and New Jersey was sentenced Tuesday to one year in prison.
Victor Torres, 66, pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated trafficking in crack cocaine stemming from a March 9 raid of his Auburn apartment.
A team of police officers and drug agents descended on the Highland Avenue apartment on a tip that Torres was involved in stealing more than a half-dozen handguns and two assault rifles from a local gun shop.
The stolen weapons were not found, but police seized about 35 prepackaged rocks of crack cocaine found in the toilet and other parts of the apartment, Assistant District Attorney Kevin Regan said in court Tuesday.
In addition to the 14.7 grams of crack cocaine, police confiscated $1,570 in cash.
Torres was initially charged with Class A trafficking. The state agreed to lower it to a Class B charge in exchange for a guilty plea.
The year-long stint in Maine State Prison will not be Torres’ first experience behind bars.
In 1969, he was charged with murder after a killing in New Jersey. The charge was later changed to assault in a plea bargain.
Years later, he was charged with murder in another slaying, ultimately convicted and sentenced to more than a decade in a New Jersey prison.
Local drug agents have described Torres as the overseer of a family run drug operation that has been importing crack from New Jersey and selling it in Lewiston for more than three years.
More than a month after Torres’ arrest, police charged a Rumford man in connection with the break-in at Reid’s Gun and Cigar Shop on Court Street. Arthur Beaver, 22, was charged with theft of firearms and possession of stolen firearms and is waiting to be tried in federal court.
Comments are no longer available on this story