PORTLAND – An Auburn man described as a major distributor of crack cocaine in the Twin Cities was sentenced Wednesday to 16 years in federal prison.

Carlos Torres, 29, was ordered to prison a year after he was indicted on a charge of conspiracy to possess and distribute crack.

In Lewiston and Auburn, drug agents had been investigating Torres since 2000.

His father, 68-year-old Victor Torres, was convicted of dealing drugs here in 2005 and was described as the head of a crime family operating out of New Jersey.

When the elder Torres went to prison for a year, drug investigators say Carlos took over the bulk of the local operation, managing cocaine transactions between Jersey City and the Lewiston area.

Carlos Torres operated his trafficking ring out of homes on Highland Avenue, Main Street and Poland Road in Auburn, according to police who investigated him.

In 2005 and 2006, federal investigators joined the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency and the Central Maine Violent Crime Task Force in their probe into Torres’ dealings.

Prosecutors said Torres was caught selling crack to undercover buyers before he was indicted last August in U.S. District Court in Portland.

He was arrested in September after he was tracked down in New Jersey, according to court records.

He later pleaded guilty to the charge against him and was sentenced to 195 months in federal prison.

“The court found that he was a career felon,” said U.S. Attorney Rene Bunker.

That status allowed a federal judge to sentence Torres to a long sentence, she said.

He was deemed a career criminal because of prior convictions for drug trafficking in New Jersey and for a 1998 conviction for possession an assault weapon, Bunker said.

Police said Torres conspired with a man who was later charged in the murders of an Egyptian couple and their two children in New Jersey.

Torres did not participate in those killings, police said, but he was a direct associate of 27-year-old Edward McDonald, formerly of Lewiston, who reportedly confessed to killing the couple and their young daughters.

McDonald is presently on trial for the killings.

Torres, who lost one of his legs years ago as a result of being slashed with a rusty machete, will serve his sentence in a federal prison in another state.