AUBURN — A New Gloucester man awaiting trial for manslaughter in a 2017 Auburn crash has been charged with trafficking in fentanyl and dispatching his father to make deliveries.

Steven Primavera, left, listens to his attorney, James Howaniec, during a June 2019 hearing in Androscoggin County Superior Court in Auburn on motions in his 2017 manslaughter case. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal file photo

Steven Primavera, 36, of 357 Bennett Road had been free on bail since his May 2018 indictment on the charge of manslaughter, a Class A felony, punishable by up to 30 years in prison.

Primavera was arrested in January and charged with two counts of aggravated trafficking in scheduled drugs, each a Class A felony. The charge was enhanced because of a 2004 conviction of selling cocaine. He also was charged with four counts of violating conditions of release.

Because the drug charges are felonies, he cannot go to trial unless a grand jury were to hand up an indictment on those counts.

Primavera’s manslaughter case in Androscoggin County Superior Court has been stalled since last summer while awaiting a judge’s order on a defense motion to suppress evidence.

According to police reports filed in court last month, confidential informants arranged by phone purchases from Primavera of one gram of heroin or fentanyl near his New Gloucester home on Sept. 23 and Oct. 8 2019.

In those reports, drug agents wrote that the informant called or texted Primavera to buy a gram of the drug for roughly $180.

Agents searched the informant before the exchange to check for any money or drugs. The informant was given cash in “prerecorded controlled purchase money.”

Each time, an informant was driven by an agent to a location on Swamp Road in New Gloucester, “just down the street” from Primavera’s home.

As the agent drove past his home, a Dodge pickup truck pulled out of his driveway and followed the agent’s vehicle down nearby Swamp Road.

At the designated spot, the informant exited the agent’s vehicle and walked back to the driver’s side window of the truck, where Primavera’s 65-year-old father, Anthony, handed the informant a “Dominican Tie,” the tied-off corner of a plastic sandwich baggie containing the drug.

The informant returned to the agent’s vehicle and handed over the drugs.

Anthony Primavera was later charged with two counts of Class B trafficking, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Last summer, a judge heard arguments on a motion by the defense seeking to throw out evidence from a post-accident blood test and cellphone text messages.

He remains in Cumberland County Jail in Portland without bail after prosecutors filed a motion to have him arrested on the new charges and his bail revoked.

No date has been scheduled for a hearing on the motion to revoke his bail.

Primavera had driven a car on Sept. 22, 2017, crossed the centerline and veered into the oncoming lane on Court Street before striking a motorcycle, then slammed into a tree shortly before 6 p.m., according to police.

Reginal Clement, 54, of Starks, who was driving the 2013 Harley-Davidson, was killed. His wife, Kathryn, had been following Clement on her motorcycle.

Drugs detected in Primavera’s system from blood analysis included methadone and Xanax, both prescription drugs, police said. Primavera had said he’d gone to a methadone clinic at 7 a.m. that day. The crash occurred at 5:52 p.m.

Police said messages on Primavera’s cellphone showed no activity from 1:25 a.m. until 5:55 p.m. on that day, when he wrote to his girlfriend that he “hit a motorcycle head-on.”

A second message from him informed his girlfriend that police intended to draw his blood, “so I might go to jail.”