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By DOUG HARLOW
Staff Writer 12/21/2007

Police said Richard A. Lee Sr., who turned 40 on Thursday, was arrested on Upper Main Street with 48 rocks of crack cocaine, valued on the street at just under $5,000.

The charge against Lee is aggravated trafficking in drugs, a Class A felony punishable upon conviction by up to 30 years in prison. The trafficking charge is elevated by the amount of cocaine present and by the fact that the video store where Lee was taken into custody is within 1,000 feet of the George J. Mitchell Elementary School, according to Waterville Police Chief Joseph Massey.

Lee was arrested after a female friend who was out on bail was spotted by police Officer Thurston Russell on Upper Main Street and stopped for routine questioning. Russell called Sgt. William Bonney, who responded for support.

"They felt that she my have some drugs so they called a female officer, Misty Savage, from Oakland to come down and search her more appropriately," Massey said. "While they were searching her they noticed Richard Lee come out of the video store and approach them."

Massey said one of the officers noticed that Lee did not have any videos in his hands and thought that was unusual, considering he had just left a video store.

He said one of the officers walked into the video store and asked the clerk if Lee had been in the store and she directed him to the adult movie section.

"The clerk said 'That gentleman asked me to hold this bag for him,'" Massey said.

Inside the bag were some Latina adult movies and a crack pipe, according to Massey. In addition to the crack pipe and the movies were six bags of what appeared to be crack cocaine.

"Each one of those bags has eight gram-size rocks of crack cocaine," Deputy Police Chief Charles Rumsey said. "There is a total of 48 grams, or rocks, just under two ounces."

Police seized the bag, the videos and the rocks. Lee also had a small amount of cocaine on his person, police say.

"Because he had more than 32 grams, that's the threshold, and because he was within 1,000 feet of the George Mitchell school, it was a Class A felony," Massey said. "They arrested him in the parking lot."

Massey said a woman came to the police station while Lee was being booked and said she could have $10,000 in cash there within 30 minutes and asked that police not take him to the Kennebec County jail in Augusta. 1The 30 minutes passed and Lee was taken to jail, where he was bailed with $10,000 cash at about 4 a.m. Thursday by a 32-year-old male friend, said to be from northern Somerset County.

"It strikes me as unusual that someone had $10,000 cash available to them at that time of night," Massey said.

Massey and Rumsey said the case is the third cocaine bust in the city in the past month.

"Obviously these hard drugs are being brought in; it's coming from out of the area and many times it's coming from out of state," Massey said. "It's a sad statement, but we're getting a large influx of drugs from out of state."

Doug Harlow -- 861-9244

dharlow@centralmaine.com

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