PARIS — A father and son at the center of a home-based methamphetamine manufacturing operation, whose criminal activity roped in a network of friends and family before being dismantled last year, were handed prison sentences Friday. 

David and Mico Thompson, originally from Albany Township, appeared in Oxford County Superior Court and were handed sentences a state prosecutor said are commensurate with their level of involvement in a scheme to sell the highly addictive stimulant. 

David Thompson, 53, labeled by prosecutors as the leader of the operation, pleaded no contest to three Class A drug felony charges in exchange for a deal with the state to serve four years in prison pending resolution on their appeals to the state’s highest court.

Thompson’s attorney, Sarah Glynn, said she will appeal the case to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court on the grounds that the lower court judge should have granted a motion for a hearing to determine whether police lied on an affidavit used to obtain a search warrant. 

David’s son, Mico Thompson, 32, was sentenced to nine months after pleading guilty to two felony drug counts for providing his home as the base of operations. 

Excepting for David Thompson’s appeal, the sentences end court proceedings against nine Oxford County residents.

Following months of investigations, controlled purchases and tips by concerned residents, agents raided homes in Gilead, Greenwood and Oxford, and Albany and Mason townships in February 2014. They found evidence of “one-pot” meth labs and the ingredients used to make the drug. The state later dropped charges against one of the women involved. 

David Thompson, who police said has a multistate criminal record, confessed to teaching his family members, friends and others how to cook methamphetamine, according to Assistant District Attorney David Fisher.

Others arrested, including Albany Township resident Rodney Levesque, 36, who was sentenced to three and a half years in prison in January, were said to have peddled pseudoephedrine so the Thompsons could cook meth.  

Also Friday, a judge gave Macy Blaisdell, who purchased pseudoephedrine from Thompson but may not have known what it would be used for, was given a six-month suspended sentence with one year of probation and a $400 fine. 

Had the case gone to trial, Fisher told the court, the state would have provided evidence that Mico Thompson allowed his estranged father to room in his house after moving from out of state. Once there, David began cooking meth for personal consumption and private sale. Though Mico didn’t make the drugs himself, he didn’t object and sometimes peddled them, Fisher said.

“He never said, ‘Get it out — that stuff’s dangerous,'” Fisher said. 

At the house, investigators from the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency found a small amount of meth, four two-liter plastic bottles used as ‘one-pot’ meth labs, gas generators, fuel and burnt lithium batteries, equipment consistent with the ingredients in meth manufacturing, Fisher said. 

During sentencing arguments, Mico’s attorney, Jason Bulay, asked for leniency regarding the state’s request for an 18-month prison sentence. He argued that a 90-day sentence would drive home the message that meth wasn’t tolerated, while allowing a family-loving, hardworking man to turn around one bad episode in his life.

Mico, addressing the court, said he fully accepted his actions and felt he was “headed in the right direction.” His sentence will begin next fall so he can work during the summer. 

“The hardest thing, though, really wasn’t getting in trouble, or standing in front of this court and asking for any mercy; it was explaining to my 9-year-old daughter what had happened and why, why we lost possession of our beautiful home in the country,” he said. 

ccrosby@sunmediagroup.net 

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